Chongzhen and I became partners

Chapter 208 Railway
However, Concubine Tian Gui soon realized a problem, and immediately asked: "Your Majesty, riding and shooting must be outside, and it may take a lot of time just to prepare the screen!"

When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he was a little startled, then came back to his senses, thought about it and said: "Liu Weichao's meaning is to prevent future generations from seeing that he is in the Forbidden City, and to be able to promote his company. Based on this, I feel that , you can find an open space in the Royal Garden to play, and you don’t need too many screens to block it, as long as you can show his company, it’s fine!”

Before he knew it, he had already started to use the experience he had summed up before.It is to understand what the purpose is, and then do things according to the purpose!
If the Emperor Chongzhen had changed from the beginning, facing the problem of Concubine Tian Gui, he would definitely not know what to do. Either follow the previous practice and use many screens to cover him, or he could only contact Liu Weichao again and ask his opinion.

At this time, Concubine Tian Gui was very happy when she heard Emperor Chongzhen's words that she didn't need to bother so much, so she replied: "Then Your Majesty will give me half a day to arrange the place, and then practice again!"

After hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen naturally had no objections. After driving back, he summoned the prince Zhu Cihong and asked him to read the test paper passed by Liu Weichao, and then the prince's people dictated it.As for himself, he handles government affairs on the sidelines.

While I was busy, the servant suddenly came to report that the sweet potato vines from Jiangnan had arrived in Tongzhou, a total of ten ships.

As soon as Emperor Chongzhen was overjoyed, he immediately decreed that the capital needed five boats, and the other five boats would be distributed to the surrounding state capitals. According to the previous decree, all government offices at all levels and the mansions of local officials should be planted with sweet potatoes.Wang Xiangjin will take the lead in this matter.

Compared with potatoes, the promotion of sweet potatoes is much simpler.

The first is that at this time, sweet potatoes have become popular in Fujian and Guangdong, and even some are planted in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Nanzhili.

The second is the planting of sweet potatoes. It is not necessary to germinate sweet potato pieces, but to cut the sweet potato vines and plant them in the ground to live.

For this reason, Emperor Chongzhen could only promote sweet potatoes on a large scale first.

As soon as this decree was announced, it immediately became one of the topics in the streets and alleys of the capital.

Not only will sweet potatoes be planted in the imperial garden of the Forbidden City, but also in the open spaces of government offices at all levels, and it is even clearly stipulated that official residences must also be planted. So what exactly is this sweet potato?It can be said that everyone is curious about it!

Sometimes, the biggest obstacle to the promotion of crops is that the people below don't know whether the product is good or not, and they won't believe it when they talk empty words.

However, the emperor and those high officials took the lead in planting, even if they planted shit, in the eyes of many people, it would become a treasure.

They will think, if this thing is not good, can the emperor grow it?Those officials and lords know how to plant?

Also, now the emperor and the official are both planting it. Whether or not there is such a thing in the family is a symbol of status!

Anyway, it doesn't take up space, just treat it as a flower garden.

Planting sweet potatoes from top to bottom immediately became a hot topic in Ming Dynasty.

So, spontaneously, some businessmen saw the business opportunity and transported sweet potato vines from the south to the north, and they were snapped up.

The promotion of sweet potatoes started smoothly.

Of course, it will take time to reap the rewards and fully promote it.

On Emperor Chongzhen's side, after letting Wang Xiangjin do something, he naturally would not always pay attention to the follow-up development.At this time, he just stared at the copying of the test paper.

In order to prevent the test questions from being leaked, the copyists were not allowed to leave. After finishing the papers and printing them, the prince personally watched them.

The reason why Emperor Chongzhen attached so much importance to this matter was because there was a real shortage of manpower at the Military Bureau, especially knowledgeable ones.

According to Liu Weichao's reminder, all matters in the military battle bureau should be organized into a book, not to mention, and the problems and phenomena encountered in the process should be described.For each process, but also research and improvement and so on.

Now the training of the Yongwei Battalion and the Beijing Battalion is in full swing, because it is expected that these two armies will mainly use firearms. After the first stage of training in formation and basic skills on the battlefield, guns will be issued for actual training.

The output of the Bingzhan Bureau must keep up and provide enough flintlock guns. This is a major issue that Emperor Chongzhen urgently needs to solve.

Only by doing a good job in this matter can we train a strong army according to the plan.

As time passed, the day when Jianlu entered the customs was getting closer, and Kaifeng insisted on getting longer and longer. These two things are imminent!
He was busy, Fang Zhenghua came to see him, and asked him another problem: "Long Live Lord, some of the iron ore needed by the military battle bureau cannot be supplied."

When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he was startled, and quickly asked, "What's going on? But some miners escaped? Didn't I say that we should improve their treatment and give them money?"

"Go back to Long live, no, no miners escaped!" Fang Zhenghua heard it, and quickly replied, "It's just that the production of iron and steel is getting bigger and bigger. The daily consumption of this iron ore is too much, and the supply from the mine cannot be supplied. gone."

Speaking of this, he thought for a while, and then immediately added: "The servant has checked, the most important thing is that the speed of transporting iron ore from the mine to the outside is too slow, and the speed of transporting it to the capital is not fast enough. ox cart!”

The supply of iron ore on the capital's side is mainly iron ore from the capital.If it is not on the first line of the canal, it can only be transported by land, which is very expensive.

Having said this, Fang Zhenghua knew what Emperor Chongzhen likes to see the most, so he presented a memorial, which stated the specific data of digging pits and transporting ore, all of which were written in Arabic numerals, which was clear at a glance, and cost a lot of money. Not much space.

When Emperor Chongzhen heard it, he immediately thought of something, and said to him: "I have a solution to this matter, so go ahead and do it, and I will tell you later!"

After Fang Zhenghua heard this, he was a little curious, wondering how the emperor would solve it?

Because he had already thought of the way he should have thought of.If we want to solve this problem, we need to increase the number of people in the mine, but he has already done it, and there is really no way to add more people.

He has already deployed all the oxen and horse-drawn carts that can be deployed from the mine to the capital. Where else can the emperor deploy them?It's impossible to use the war horses from the Yongwei Camp and the Beijing Camp, right?

If the war horse is used to pull goods, it will use up the war horse!

With doubts in my heart, but also expectations, I don't know what the Emperor Chongzhen will do to solve this transportation bottleneck, so I went back to his military battle.

As soon as he left, Emperor Chongzhen immediately contacted Liu Weichao, and when he got connected, he first asked: "I remember that there is a steam train that can pull many carriages, right?"

He had already seen it through the video, so he told Fang Zhenghua, but he didn't take care of this before, so he didn't ask about the specific situation.

Upon hearing this, Liu Weichao nodded immediately and said, "Yes, you want to build this steam train now?"

"Yes!" Emperor Chongzhen answered after hearing this, and then explained the current bottleneck of iron ore transportation.

Hearing this, Liu Weichao said with a smile: "If you build a railway to solve the transportation capacity, there is absolutely no problem. But if you want to build a railway in Gyeonggi, there is another problem that must be solved."

"What's the problem?" Emperor Chongzhen asked curiously when he heard this, "Do you need manpower? I can conscript labor, anyway, it's not a busy time for farming!"

For those craftsmen who work for the royal family, Emperor Chongzhen has begun to pay salaries, which is no longer a way of labor.

However, at this time, it is impossible for him to exempt all the original labor, at least he does not have the confidence at present.

The money in hand must at least ensure the needs of a strong army.There has to be a process to change from servitude to paid labor.

Upon hearing this, Liu Weichao shook his head and said, "It's not a question of manpower."

Having said that, he paused, and then said to Emperor Chongzhen: "Besides, you just said that labor can be conscripted. My advice to you is that it is best not to do so!"

Emperor Chongzhen suppressed the first question when he heard it, and first explained to Liu Weichao: "It's not that I don't want to stop working hard, but now..."

Hearing his blah blah blah blah blah blah, Liu Weichao laughed, and immediately said to Emperor Chongzhen: "The reason why I said it's best not to use labor is not for this reason. It's because building railways is a technical job. You'd better do it yourself." A group of people were selected from the beginning to specialize in railway construction. You can’t just build a road and pull it down, right? At that time, skilled railway workers are what you need urgently!”

Hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen knew that he had misunderstood, and he couldn't help being a little embarrassed, but then he said a little bit embarrassed: "But I don't have enough craftsmen, how can there be a group of people who specialize in railway construction! "

After hearing this, Liu Weichao gave him an idea: "When the railway was built in my country, the army was used. Later, the army that built the railway was changed into a railway corps to build railways for all parts of the country. Later, it was restructured into a company, which belongs to the It is controlled by the imperial court. I feel that you can learn from it!"

When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, his eyes lit up.But then there was a question: "But the Yongwei Camp and the Beijing Camp are being rebuilt, and their future responsibilities will also require smoothing out bandits and destroying Jianlu. How can they build a railway?"

Liu Weichao laughed as soon as he heard it. It was true that the authorities were fascinated by the onlookers. He reminded Emperor Chongzhen: "Don't you still have local guards? They can't fight wars. You can use them to build railways! If you don't have enough young people, you can recruit some more. Give military pay, isn't that all right?"

"That's right!" Emperor Chongzhen couldn't help being overjoyed when he heard this.

Today's local guards are really ruined, and it is absolutely useless to ask them to fight to put down the rebellion of thieves and Jianlu.

According to Liu Weichao's suggestion, it means that waste can be reused!In this way, the manpower problem for building the railway is solved.

Thinking of this, he happily asked: "Then what is another question you said?"

(End of this chapter)