Chapter 1145 The economic front determines success or failure

  But Feng Ziying still insisted on promoting the construction of this road.

  Because he believes that from Lulong via Funing to Yuguan (Shanhaiguan) not only in the economic sense, but also in the military and political sense.

  Economic significance Needless to say, the construction of the Lulong-Funing-Yuguan (Shanhaiguan) road can greatly improve transportation efficiency, especially during the rainy and snowy seasons in winter and summer, and no longer worry about delays.

In addition, Lulong will become the most important industrial center in Jingdong in the future. The development of the major industries of iron smelting, iron making, charcoal (coke), military industry, and cement is enough for Lulong to prosper rapidly, but the biggest bottleneck restricting it is Sinotrans.

Lulong, which is located inland, can only use the most convenient way to break through this bottleneck, and it can greatly promote the development of Yuguan Port, and the prosperity of Yuguan Port can directly radiate to the entire West Liaoning Corridor, making the future pass through West Liaoning and The Eastern Mongolian grassland is more closely connected, making the entire Eastern Mongolian grassland economically dependent on Da Zhou.

   This is great value in the economic sense.

From a military point of view, Yongping Mansion has very superior conditions to build a core area relying on iron smelting, iron making, military industry, and building materials industries. This core area can not only strongly support the military needs of the entire Liaodong, but also can Coordinate the east plate of the entire nine-border defense including Jizhen and Xuanfu, and meet the military needs of Liaodong, Jizhen and Xuanfu.

According to Feng Ziying's vision, in the future Yongping Prefecture will not only become a pioneer area for the industrial development of the entire Northland, but also become a new crop experiment area for planting potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn, especially potatoes are very suitable for the Zhuzhou County of Yongping Prefecture It can also play a very good role in relieving the food pressure in Liaodong and Jizhen, which all need to use this road.

The political meaning is even simpler and straightforward. Qi Yongtai asked Feng Ziying to say a few words before he left. However, the hundreds of thousands of refugees did not just give relief as soon as they said it. The imperial court lacked financial resources and needed to be raised by all parties.

  Then Yongping Mansion can divert some refugees and help the court relieve some pressure.

  As long as they can survive the next spring, the problem of refugees will be much easier to solve.

In Feng Ziying's view, even if the iron smelting and iron factories, as well as the charcoal and cement plants in Lulong and Qian'an try their best to expand their production, it is impossible to accommodate too many refugees. So the job that can accommodate refugees most is What, it is natural to engage in engineering, and it has been like this throughout the ages.

In this case, it is better to build the concrete road from Lulong-Funing-Yuguan (Shanhaiguan) first. The road in the early stage requires a lot of labor. Come to participate in road construction, and then get a grain of food for their own family that can survive winter and spring.

  Feng Ziying also told Wang Shaoquan and the others to transport rice and wheat from Shandong and Nanzhi to Yuguan as soon as possible to prepare for the arrival of refugees in the next few months.

   "What does your lord mean, that this kind of iron track will definitely be built in the future?" Wang Shaoquan felt a headache.

   "Shaoquan, how much do you think the current output of iron smelting furnaces is greater than our original estimate?" Feng Ziying asked back.

Wang Shaoquan was speechless for a while, everyone was skeptical before, what kind of new technology is like, and the quality of the iron material produced is not sure, but until the furnace of molten iron flows out, seeing this kind of The smooth operation of the model that can be continuously replicated, they deeply realized the power of this new technology.

"Now you think we can continue to expand and replicate. As long as our mining can keep up, there are actually many mines available for mining in Lulong, Qian'an, and Luanzhou. What limits us now is the number of our craftsmen. Especially those skilled craftsmen are not enough. When batch after batch of craftsmen grow up in three to five years, how much do you think the production capacity of this iron material will expand? How much will the cost drop? This has not yet been calculated. If we Is there a better new process to improve production and quality?"

Feng Ziying’s words were full of longing, “So what I’m talking about is not now, maybe five years later, maybe ten years later or twenty years later, you know the price of iron now, a catty of pig iron is about eight copper coins, now It has risen to twelve yuan, and a catty of scrap iron was only thirty copper coins in the 30th year of Yuanxi, but now it has risen to forty-five yuan, and a catty of mung bean iron wire is about forty-five yuan in the 30th year of Yuanxi , now it is sixty-five, what is the reason?"

Wang Shaoquan pondered and said: "The output of the North Subway has basically not changed much in the past two decades. On the contrary, the output of the Zunhua Iron Works has declined due to various reasons. In addition, the demand has increased, including the North itself and the grasslands and The frequent wars in Liaodong have even greater demand for iron materials,..."

In fact, there is another reason here, that is, the price of silver has risen. Due to the sea ban in this dynasty, the channel for the large amount of silver brought by galleons from Japan and Spain to enter the Great Zhou was severely blocked in the previous life, so the price of silver continued to rise. To a certain extent Inflation is suppressed, otherwise the rise will be even greater, but this is not good for people's livelihood.

  However, with the lifting of the sea ban, the speed and intensity of silver entering the big week in the past two years has obviously shown a rapid upward trend. I believe that there will be a considerable increase in prices in the next few years.

   But the whole story is very complicated, even Feng Ziying can hardly explain it clearly, he can only know a general idea.

"Then once the output of our iron smelting workshops and iron workshops increases significantly, and continues to increase, and even in the future, other areas with iron ore will gradually use our existing new iron smelting technology, you Do you think we can consider this possibility in the future?

Wang Shaoquan knew that he could not convince the other party, but the other party also said that this is a relatively distant future, so there is no need to think about it for the time being, which also made him feel a little relieved. When that time comes, the business group will spend a lot of money To satisfy this hobby, there is nothing wrong with that.

  Feng Ziying didn't bother to talk to Wang Shaoquan, not to mention Xia Chong, but at least these people couldn't understand it at this stage, and he had to accept this reality.

  ********

  Jia Yun took a deep breath, and walked into the household office with steady steps.

  When he received the notification from the household department, he felt an indescribable sense of joy and comfort, which was even better than the feeling of ordering a Qingshi in Yunxiang Building.

  He is not a person who has never seen the world. Over the past few years, he has dealt with the Ministry of Accounts many times, but the money was handed over to the Ministry of Accounts through the channel of Haitong, and finally handed over to the bank of the Ministry of Accounts.

But this time is different, it is the first time that the Ministry of Households borrowed money from Haitong Yinzhuang. It's a small sum.

Without him, the imperial treasury is empty, and it will take time for the autumn tax to be paid everywhere, but now the situation in the Southwest War is dangerous, and more than 50,000 captives in the Beijing camp need to be redeemed, and the Japanese pirates in Nanzhili are in Nantong Prefecture After disappearing, he suddenly appeared in Zhenjiang Mansion. Dantu and Danyang were harassed by Japanese pirates one after another, the water transportation was interrupted, and the south of the Yangtze River was shaken.

The defense of the Yangtze River in Nanzhili has always been fragile, especially in the past ten years. Therefore, after the Japanese invaders this time, the Ministry of War in Nanjing wrote to the imperial court, strongly demanding to revive the defense of the Yangtze River. This also put great pressure on the court.

  According to the opinions of the Nanjing Ministry of War, the Yangtze River Navy should be established immediately, and the scale should be even twice that of the Denglai Navy. In order to ensure the defense of the entire Nanzhili and even the Yangtze River and the coast of Huguang, the standard has been raised very high.

In view of the fact that the Japanese invaders have blocked water transport, and this winter and next spring, Jingshi City is facing the pressure of refugees and refugees in the northern part of Shuntian Prefecture, and it is necessary to transport a large amount of grain and cloth from Jiangnan to Beijing to alleviate the demand. Under these circumstances, the request of the Nanjing Ministry of War seems to be reasonable. middle.

As a last resort, the cabinet also preliminarily agreed to form the Yangtze River Fleet Division, first appropriating 300,000 taels of silver, plus the silver taels needed for the redemption of the Beijing camp and the military salaries prepared in advance for the Denglai Army and the Guyuan Army for the Southwest War. It needed 1.2 million taels of silver, but there was only less than 800,000 taels of silver in the treasury, which was a huge difference. Therefore, as a last resort, the imperial court asked Haitong Yinzhuang for a loan of 500,000 taels.

   "Jia Yun met Master Wei."

   Wei Dazhong looked at the young man in front of him, and couldn't help sighing in his heart. The court was difficult, but Haitong Yinzhuang was developing extremely fast. Now, all banks in Jingzhong Bank follow Haitong's lead. It's only been a few years?

   At first, Haitong Yinzhuang also wanted the imperial court to take a stake, but the imperial court hesitated for a long time, and finally rejected the invitation, but now it seems that it was a mistake.

"Sit down, shopkeeper Jia." Wei Dazhong knew that this person was a descendant of Rong Guogong's Jia family. Zhuang is now the big shopkeeper in Beijing.

   "Thank you, sir." Jia Yun's previous high-spirited courage disappeared quickly after entering the household office, and was replaced by indescribable depression and restraint.

Although I kept cheering myself up in my heart, this time it was the household department who borrowed money from my family, and my family was the creditor, but this innate awe of the government still lingered. I almost feel that Brother Yun is promising, and he can actually enter and leave the office of the household department.

"Yeah." Seeing that Jia Yun was also submissive, Wei Dazhong's inner resentment calmed down a little bit, and he also knew that this was not the time to be arrogant, so he nodded, "I'm here to ask you, I'm afraid you also know the specifics, the imperial court The current situation is difficult, and the autumn tax has not yet been paid, so I have to temporarily pay some money, so I want to get a little bit of money from you Haitong."

  (end of this chapter)