Although the emperor had forced the Council of State to build a very short railway track six years ago, that track was completely unusable.
Good things often come with difficulties; the first railway of the Song Dynasty took a full six years to build.
But this is of epoch-making significance.
The economic potential of the Song Dynasty has not yet been fully realized.
It was mainly limited by factors such as technology, transportation, information transmission, population education, and traditional concepts.
Technological advancement takes time.
The improvements that can be seen are in transportation, information transmission, and population education.
When the economy reaches a certain scale, traditional ideas naturally change.
Humans adapt to the times; those who cannot adapt will be eliminated. This is an immutable truth.
Therefore, at all times, transportation and information transmission were things that Zhao Huan needed to continuously strengthen.
As the Spring Festival approaches, the Political Affairs Hall has submitted a blueprint for railway planning for the next five years.
This was more beneficial to the Song Dynasty's economy than highways.
The first line is the Jingyou Line from Tokyo to Youzhou, which runs through Puyang, Daming Prefecture, Zhengding Town (Shijiazhuang), Zhending Prefecture, and Youzhou.
It connects Kaifeng Prefecture with Hebei Road and Yanyun Road.
The second route runs from Tokyo to Xijing Chang'an, passing through Zhengzhou and Luoyang, then westward to Shangluo, and finally reaching Chang'an.
The third route runs from Tokyo to Hangzhou, passing through Yingtianfu, Xuzhou, Chuzhou, Jinling, and finally arriving in Hangzhou.
The fourth route runs from Tokyo to Guangzhou, the southern capital. It passes through Xuzhou (Xuchang), Ruyang, Xinyang, Jiangling, Tanzhou (Changsha), and Hengzhou, then enters Shaozhou from Hengzhou and arrives in Guangzhou.
The fifth railway line runs from Tokyo to Chengdu, and it was a very difficult railway to build.
The road to Shu is difficult, more difficult than ascending to heaven.
This is not a joke.
But it was still included in the plan.
The sixth route extends from Tokyo City to the Southwest War Zone, into Guangnan West Road, and then to Jiaozhou.
This is a railway that is even longer than the Beijing-Guangzhou line. Because the southwest is mountainous, this railway does not run directly through the southwest.
Instead, it first went straight south, passing through Jiangling Prefecture and Tanzhou, then entered Guangnan West Road, passed through Qinzhou, entered Jiaozhou, and extended all the way to the Jiulongjiang Plain.
This can be said to be the most ambitious proposal made by the rat in the eleven years since the Jingkang Incident.
The government estimates that the construction of these six railways will require 300 million kan (a unit of currency).
One string of cash is equal to 465 yuan. If we convert it this way, it would require 139.5 billion yuan.
The economic benefits these six railways brought to the Song Dynasty far exceeded 300 million strings of cash; they brought about a qualitative change in transportation for the next thirty years.
Zhao Huan was willing to allocate the funds to accomplish this task.
However, the Inspectorate is likely to be quite busy.
With such a huge sum of money to be allocated, countless people are so excited they can't sleep.
Once the strategic planning is done well, poor execution can quickly ruin things.
In short, the emperor's knife is now sharpened.
That son of a bitch dares to greedily make money in here, send his whole family to meet the King of Hell.
Such a matter, which benefits the country and its people and will benefit future generations, must not be allowed to go wrong in any way.
As soon as the imperial court announced its railway plan, almost all the merchants in the Song Dynasty were mobilized.
This matter was so far-reaching that it covered almost all the major prefectures and counties of the Song Dynasty.
Back then, Emperor Yang Guang mobilized over a million people to dig a single canal.
Nowadays, although technology has advanced, the number of people mobilized for six railway lines is probably at least two to three million.
The Great Song Railway Bureau is already working diligently to plan recruitment programs for personnel in various regions.
The official gazette of the Song Dynasty also gave extensive coverage to the railway proposal.
The general public didn't have a deep understanding of railways; they just watched the spectacle.
However, by this year, the Song Dynasty already had many scholars specializing in economics.
They unanimously believed that the imperial court was undertaking a groundbreaking undertaking.
The emperor's foresight is unmatched in the present day.
The imperial railway was the talk of the town among merchants.
Meanwhile, the port of Guangnan New Town has also attracted much attention.
The first group of merchants has already set out to transport goods to Chorian.
I heard that Minister of the Ocean Affairs, Shen Lang, has begun to build administrative institutions in Zhulian. By order of the imperial court, he has established the Zhulian Prefecture, which governs the Zhulian Road.
The Chulian government will establish banks, ports, military districts, and schools.
At the same time, some students who graduated from Hanlin Academy and Imperial Military Academy also set off from the port of Guangnan East Road, crossed the ocean, and arrived in Zhulian.
They will be stationed there as administrative officials and school teachers.
According to the standard practice of the Song Dynasty for overseas expansion, the locals had to start learning Chinese, speaking Chinese, writing Chinese characters, reading the Four Books and Five Classics, and receiving the teachings of the sages.
At the same time, we also need to build roads and carry out infrastructure projects there.
At first, the people there were unmoved.
They were all Buddhists and practiced asceticism.
Furthermore, the ascetics there also admonished the lower classes to steadfastly believe in Buddha, and all human suffering would disappear.
However, the situation changed slightly after Shen Lang applied for a batch of silver coins.
"I heard you can get paid to dig up mountains?"
"Really?"
"It's true, my friend got it yesterday."
"Don't be fooled, it's just paper, not money at all."
"But I heard that you can use that kind of paper to buy food on the street."
"You just said you'd get paid just by digging in the mountains?"
"Yes."
"Is this for real? I want to go check it out."
Just then, an ascetic monk appeared: "Sit down, all of you. I'll tell you the story of Buddha. Everything in this world is fleeting... Hey, don't go! I'll tell you the story of Buddha, don't go..."
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