I want to be emperor

Chapter 723
After receiving Wang Tu's invitation, Song Alin must pay attention to it no matter whether he is willing to increase investment in Heyuan Prefecture or not.

Because the current Wang Tu is not the county magistrate of a small remote county with no roots, but a magistrate of a provincial prefecture, and many people who are familiar with the officialdom know that there is a Guangdong chief envoy standing behind Wang Tu. Cheng Yongfeng.

If there is no accident for such a person, a mere fifth-rank magistrate will definitely not be the end of his official career, not even the magistrate. No one knows how high his future can go, but Song Alin knows the current Wang Tu It was no longer something he could offend.

Not only not to offend, but also to deepen the relationship between the two parties if possible.

In fact...whether the businessmen who agreed to come over to inspect, or the people in charge of those government-run enterprises, basically had the same mentality.

Whether to invest or not has to be checked again. The investment environment is good and it can be invested if it is profitable. If the environment does not allow it, then do not invest.

However, it is necessary to personally or send a heavyweight person in charge to Heyuan Prefecture for inspection.

The former is a business, the latter is a favor.

Even if you don't get closer, you can't offend Wang Tu, a new star in the officialdom. Who knows if he will be the person in charge of a certain department in the governor's office in a few years, let alone when he will transfer the government office where his company is located. Be a co-prefect or even a magistrate.

After all, if the fifth-rank magistrate continues to be promoted, it will be from the fourth-rank magistrate of each prefecture or the deputy director of the governor's office. For such a new star in the officialdom with huge connections, serving as a deputy is a transition. It won't be long before he can be transferred to a full-time job.

Otherwise, the people will not be able to eat enough to eat, so there is no development.

When funds are really tight, these IOUs are often owed for many years...or some local specialties and cheap goods are used as wages...

The most terrible thing is that this is not only the only payment owed by Heyuan State's finances, but also many other debts.

Obviously, it wasn't just Song Alin who saw this. Wang Tu, who is the governor of the state, knew better that Heyuan Prefecture under his rule seemed to be a big place, but in fact it had nothing to do. It didn't even have a large population, and it was difficult to engage in labor-intensive and cheap industries. Can't compete with densely populated places.

Nowadays, on the Yangtze River waterway, there are already many steam ships with thousands of tons in operation. Among them, the Shunjiang of Liuhe Shipping Company is generally used on the ships of a large number of shipping companies. Similarly, the fact that this river ship can be given a separate ship name means that this ship is different.

Founded and wholly-owned by the Guangdong Governor's Yamen Industrial Department, it developed well in the pure sailing era in the early years, but it did not have an absolute monopoly in the Pearl River Basin. At that time, there were many shipping companies in the Pearl River Basin. In addition, many companies with large transportation volumes often have their own fleets.

The fierce competition among the three major steam engine companies led to the rapid development of high-pressure steam engines in the Great Chu Empire, and the rapid development of steam engines was fed back to the train and ship industries.

At the same time, the three major steam engine manufacturers also have their own advantageous technologies, such as the multi-expansion steam engine of Tianjin Machinery Company, the new fire-tube boiler of Guangzhou Machinery Company, and so on.

This can be regarded as letting some people in charge of enterprises engaged in municipal projects, who deal with high-ranking officials and dignitaries, see what is called the shamelessness of local officials... In the past, they relied on their personal connections to bribe them, and they were able to make a lot of money by undertaking various projects of the government. Specially earned.

When Chengshun was 21 years old, the maximum actual steam pressure of the steam engine was only [-] MPa, but now some special steam engines can reach [-] or even [-] MPa. The increase in steam pressure It directly pushed up the increase in steam engine power.

He personally likes to travel by boat, and at the same time, he also wants to see with his own eyes the changes in the Dongjiang waterway in recent years, mainly to see if the navigability of those shallow water beaches has improved.

Zhujiang No. 26 steam passenger ship has a displacement of more than 150 tons. It is a standard shallow water inland river passenger ship. It has a relatively wide hull, but its draft is very shallow. The superstructure is relatively tall and it is propelled by more advanced propellers. The speed of pure steam engine can reach six knots.

The former magistrate of Heyuan prefecture did a lot of infrastructure construction, and the local people thought he was a good official, and his superiors also appreciated him, so he was transferred back to the governor's yamen to become a deputy director.

Although there will be financial support from the top...but you can't expect all the money from the top to do it. There is no such precedent in the Great Chu Empire.

After entering the age of steam, Liuhe Shipping Company has monopolized the production capacity of civil ship-borne steam engines for a long period of time by virtue of prior investment to lock in the production capacity of some civilian ship-borne steam engines of Guangzhou Machinery Company, and has taken the lead in launching steam-engine ship transportation across the country. business.

But the core area of ​​Jinling City has always been in the Jiangning and Shangyuan areas on the south bank of the Yangtze River. As for the Jiangpu area in the north of the Yangtze River, the development is very limited, and there are not even many factories...

Now that this kind of problem has expanded to the entire Heyuan Prefecture, it has become more serious and prominent.

However, relying on mountains to eat mountains, relying on water to eat water, Wang Tu visited all places in Heyuan Prefecture in detail before, and found that the entire Heyuan Prefecture is not without any merits.

This time, Song Alin was on a fast passenger ship, which belonged to the Pearl River Shipping Company, and was expected to arrive in Heyuan City soon.

Later, after more than a year of breakthroughs, the Pearl River Shipping Company obtained the production capacity of civilian shipboard steam engines, and reached a cooperation with Li's Shipyard to start large-scale construction of steam engine passenger ships and put them into operation.

To put it simply, the county towns of the three counties constitute the prefecture of Yingtian Mansion and Jinling City, the capital of the Great Chu Empire.

In Song Alin's view, Heyuan Prefecture City is not suitable for developing any industry, the transportation is inconvenient, and there are no resources around it... Even the place is only a small flat place with a narrow river valley around it, and there are mountains on both sides...

From here all the way to Longchuan County in Heyuan Prefecture, there are many large and small shallow riverbanks. Even though the local government has managed these shallow riverbanks, the scale is small and the effect is not great...

This is still a good year.

In this kind of place, it is doomed that some traditional industries cannot be established. Instead, relying on some local specialties, some simple processing industries such as cash crops are a bit difficult.

The irrigation and flood control system was also reorganized in the Lighthouse Basin.

Coupled with the original economic crop planting and processing industries such as the yuba processing industry that was established in Heping, a comprehensive economic crop planting and processing industry chain will eventually be created.

The prefectural government of Heyuan Prefecture, which was formerly the county seat of Heyuan County, became the prefectural seat after the establishment of the prefecture.

Well, those military ships are not counted... The fleet under the Guards only served an offshore shallow water battleship with a displacement of more than 2000 tons last year... It is much larger than the Shunjiang, um, you heard it right, the Guards also have Fleet, and it is still a serious battle fleet, the one with a lot of warships, not the so-called transport fleet of the army.

Although the Guangzhou-Heyuan section of the Guangdong-Jiangxi Railway has been opened, the railway line will continue to open north to Longchuan by the end of this year.

Not only the navy, the guards even have the air force. The only hot air balloon flying team in the Great Chu Empire belongs to the guards.

The Pearl River Shipping Company is also a veteran shipping company. Its predecessor was a part of the Navy's transport ships and retired personnel, plus surrendered sailors who surrendered, but were unwilling to join the army or continue to roam the seas.

At the same time, there are many places in the local area that are suitable for growing some fruits, and you can rely on the fruits to make some canned fruits

The main reason for restricting its development is that the traffic between the two sides of the strait is very troublesome, and they can only rely on ferries!

At the same time, Jinling City, the capital of the Great Chu Empire, is just a general term. Its urban area includes three parts, namely Jiangning County in the western suburbs of Jiangnan, Shangyuan County in the eastern suburbs of Jiangnan, and Jiangpu County on the north bank of the Yangtze River.

But not all places have train stations!
The distance between the railway stations along the railway is often dozens of kilometers or even more, which means that even if you want to transport by railway, you need to pull the goods from the place of origin to the railway station.

Song Alin set foot on the land of Heyuan Prefecture together with many investors who had the same plan as him.

Song Alin took the Pearl River No. 27 riverboat all the way to the north, and the wind and water flowed smoothly along the way, and he didn't encounter any water conditions, let alone any water bandits.

For ordinary commodities, a slight increase in cost will have a great impact.

If I had to say something, there were a few passengers on board who were obviously not used to the turbulence of such a long-distance boat, so that they vomited all the way.

Let alone a place like Heyuan Prefecture, even if it is as strong as Songjiang Prefecture, it is at a loss as to how to build a bridge on the Huangpu River without affecting the shipping on the Huangpu River. There is no way to develop the bridge. The area on the east bank of the river.

The excellent conditions of the Yangtze River channel, coupled with the continuous improvement of shipbuilding technology, iron-ribbed wood-hulled ships have continued to reduce the cost of building large-tonnage ships, and the steam engine technology has continued to develop, and the power of ship-borne steam engines is increasing every year.

Such superior performance also made the cost of this ship reach 18 Chu Yuan. This is the Chu Yuan under the gold standard, not 18 taels... If you really want to use the price of silver more than ten years ago, it will be priced according to the current price of gold and silver. ratio, then it is close to 30 taels.

But today's Heyuan Prefecture is poor, and the state finance cannot even pay the salaries of public officials at all levels. Wang Tu just went to Guangzhou half a month ago, what did he do?
Ask Cheng Yongfeng for money...and then bring the money back to pay part of the wages that have been in arrears for a long time!

This ship is actually not big, but it is just suitable for sailing on the Dongjiang River. After all, the lower reaches of the Dongjiang River are fine, but the navigation capacity of the middle and upper reaches is not strong. Be careful, there are also some shallow water beaches that are not navigable for such hundreds of tons of shallow water inland river ships during the dry season in autumn and winter.

However, unlike other people who chose to take the train directly to Heyuan, Song Alin chose to take a boat to Heyuan Prefecture.

After all, if you want to invest in Heyuan Prefecture, you must consider the transportation of goods.

And although Heyuan Prefecture has a train, the train freight is expensive... Song Alin's business is not too high-end, but some ordinary food processing business. The gross profit is not high, and he must control every link. cost.

Don't think that you can't pay a dime, just use the money from above to do it.

The horsepower of the locomotive is getting bigger and bigger, and the goods that can be pulled are getting more and more, and the speed is getting faster and faster.

It is not so easy to build a bridge that spans hundreds of meters across the river these days, not to mention the need to maintain the navigability of the river and the need to maintain a certain clear height of the bridge. The technology is very difficult, and the investment is even more huge.

That is to say, a large-horsepower tugboat with a very shallow draft is used to tow a number of small-tonnage and shallow-draft barges for navigation.

Relying on this, Liuhe Shipping Company quickly grew into the top few large shipping companies in the Great Chu Empire, spreading its business across the country, and even occupied the leading position in the steam ship transportation market in the Pearl River Basin.

For example, Wang Tu has been staring at the dredging of the Dongjiang waterway for a long time. When he was the magistrate of Heping County, because many processed agricultural products in Heping were transported to the Pearl River Delta for sale, they had to rely on the Dongjiang River and its tributaries for shipping.

But it will not work in Dongjiang!

Many people naturally have opinions on these things that are obviously garbage at a glance and are sold at a very high discount, but you want this thing if you want it, don't drag it down, anyway, there is no money in the finances!

When fully loaded, its maximum number of passengers can reach 1000.

In other respects, you have to find food in the mountains!
There are many mountains in Heyuan, and the environment and climate in many places are more suitable for tea plantation. Wang Tu wanted to start tea plantation, and then set up supporting tea processing to create a one-stop tea industry chain.

In this way, the problem of relatively poor navigability of shallow water channels can be better solved.

The entire city is small in size, surrounded by water on three sides, and only the south side is land. This kind of terrain is very good in military terms, and it is a typical place that is easy to defend but difficult to attack.

36 Chu yuan is nothing to some big cities, even to some enterprises. Other shipping companies order a 10,000-ton steam engine sailing ship for three [-]+ Chu yuan.

As for the Yangtze River Basin, that is, the section from Jinling City to Wusongkou, the conditions are even better.

If you ask carefully, the arrears of salary started when the Great Chu Empire first came to this poor place to establish a yamen. The usual practice is to give out part of it, and the rest as IOUs... and then reissue it when the higher-ups ask for a subsidy.

It is different from the slow-speed passenger and cargo steamer of the Liuhe Shipping Company last time. It is different after traveling upstream in the Dongjiang River for many days before arriving.

Taking rapid passenger transportation as a breakthrough point, it focuses on the mid-to-high-end passenger transportation market.

In addition, although the railway has been opened, the railway will continue to extend northward to Ganzhou in the future, and eventually connect with the Jiangxi section of the Guangdong-Jiangxi Railway in Jiangxi.

Not only do they appear on some small rivers, but even on the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the former north-south artery, there are now many barges.

Because even if the boat sinks, he is not afraid, because he can do a little swimming, and crossing a few hundred meters of the river is trivial.

Song Alin took this kind of fast passenger ship, a fast steam passenger ship Zhujiang No. 26, which was put into operation by Zhujiang Shipping Company last year.

At the same time, it launched a special offshore coal carrier, and reached cooperation with Guangzhou Iron and Steel Company and several coal sales companies in Guangdong to transport high-quality anthracite coal produced in Guangning for them.

Yes, only part of it was paid. Up to now, the state finance has still owed more than 36 Chu Yuan in salaries to public officials at all levels.

Unless there is no choice, bulky goods that do not require much time limit are usually transported by ship, because the cost of transporting by rail will be higher.

In addition, it is not impossible to go with small boats of tens of tons. If these small boats are added with barges, they can actually initially meet the local transportation needs.

After successfully arriving in Heyuanzhou City, Song Alin looked at this small city facing water on three sides, and for a moment had the illusion of traveling through time and space... as if he had returned to more than 20 years ago.

On the contrary, such a large inland waterway in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River does not need these things, because the navigation capacity of the Yangtze River waterway is very good. The main waterway in the middle and lower reaches of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River from Hantianfu to Wusongkou can pass through ships with a draft of [-] meters.

Such a large investment also makes this passenger ship the largest river ship currently operated by Liuhe Shipping Company, and it is also the largest civilian river ship currently used by major shipping companies in the Great Chu Empire.

However, if the ferry is used, the transportation volume is small and the cost is high.

But when it comes to Heyuan Prefecture, it's good...the project is picked up casually, and the price seems to be sufficient, but it is only a down payment, and the rest of the balance payment is not enough.

He has done a lot and benefited the people a lot.

In the final calculation, not to mention making money, Nima lost even the capital!
I asked relatives, friends and officials to put pressure on me. After feeling the pressure, the former Zhizhou government said politely: It’s not that I don’t want to give it, it’s that I really don’t have the money... How about you take the building of the Zhizhou Yamen to pay off the debt?
In short, no matter what you say, there is no money to go back and forth... If you are really in a hurry and plan to ask them to know the state government building to pay off the debt, they will immediately turn against you and shout: If you have the ability, you go sue, the state is next door Court!
By the way, the cement building in the Heyuan State Court has been in use for three years, but only [-]% of the money for building repairs has been paid, and the rest has not been paid... The contractors have already been dragged out of bankruptcy.

Basically just give a down payment and ask the contractor to advance the construction, and when the construction is completed and ask for the final payment, they will find various reasons to default. Regarding the wolf matter, I didn't plan to pay the final payment.

Therefore, it is necessary to take cheaper water transportation.

But the problem is that he basically didn't pay the final payment for these projects.

To dredge the shipping conditions of the Dongjiang River and its tributaries, especially to control those shallow water beaches; at the same time, to improve and maintain some major official roads in the territory; this is the keynote set by Wang Tu for infrastructure construction.

And water transportation depends on the situation of the waterway!
This is one of the reasons why Song Alin chose to go north by boat instead of directly taking the more convenient train...

Food is always the most important task for local development. Whether it is growing food by oneself, or purchasing food from other places through the development of industrial and commercial economy, the local food supply must be sufficient.

As for the simultaneous development around the crossing estuary, the ideal is beautiful, but the reality is very backbone... If you want to develop across the river at the same time, you must first solve the traffic problem on both sides of the river.

But for the development of industry and commerce, the limitations are relatively large. The surrounding plain area suitable for development is relatively small, and it is divided into three places by the intersection of two rivers!
In this case, one of the places can only be developed, and the other two places can only be temporarily abandoned!

And ships can also be built bigger and bigger, and faster and faster.

Naturally, Song Alin is not the one who gets seasick. He grew up by the river since he was a child. He has been doing business all over the world in recent years, and he basically took boats. He never knew what seasickness was when he was young...

This seemingly short land transportation distance is actually very troublesome. To make these roads smooth, it is necessary to invest a lot of money to widen and maintain the roads.

This place is a very rare flat area in the mountainous area of ​​northern Guangdong, which can promote large-scale grain planting. This has already been done before, and Wang Tu will also focus on this area for agricultural development in the next few years. On the development of the Lighthouse Basin.

Therefore, in terms of urban development, rivers have both advantages and disadvantages. Rivers bring more convenient external transportation, but they also limit the development of external expansion of local urban areas.

As for the ships of more than 100 tons, they can only be seen in the current wet season in summer. When the dry season in winter, ships like the Pearl River No. 27 want to pass through several shallow water beaches. It's very troublesome... When necessary, it even needs to manually dredge the sand to dredge the river to move forward.

His goal is to develop Heyuan Prefecture, which is regarded as a poor country with nothing to do, into a state that exports agricultural products.

Generally speaking, the waterways in the middle and upper reaches of the Dongjiang River are mainly sailed by small boats of tens of tons. In addition, barges have also become popular in recent years.

But the predecessor did a lot of things, but he didn't give much money!
It's normal to engage in infrastructure construction. Local officials will mostly want to make it more beautiful for their political achievements or their own ideals. Wang Tu's predecessor set up a so-called new administrative center and repaired the Zhizhou Yamen. It is beautiful, and a so-called pedestrian street was built by the river, which is very beautiful, to enrich the daily life of the people, and also repaired several official roads, and repaired the flood control dams of several rivers.

And taking advantage of the latecomers, they have designed and built a batch of fast inland passenger ships because of the more advanced performance of the steam engine they obtained.

When the local government needs financial support from superiors for some kind of infrastructure construction, first of all, you have to take out part of it yourself, and then the superiors will consider subsidizing part of it for you.

Through the cultivation and processing of agricultural products, the income of local farmers can be increased, more jobs can be provided, and the government can obtain valuable tax revenue to improve infrastructure.

After all, Heyuan Prefecture in the middle and upper reaches of the Dongjiang River is not a place with a developed economy. If you invest huge sums of money to dredge the waterway, it will not be worth the candle.

But it all takes money!

But for the poor and clinking Heyuan state's finances, that is a huge sum of money.

After so many years, the accumulated salary arrears has reached a huge amount of 36 Chu Yuan.

In order to compete with each other, the three major steam engines invested heavily in research and development in the field of high-pressure steam engines, thus continuously pushing up the performance of the steam engines.

The land road conditions in Heyuan are not optimistic, even the official roads are not good.

Its displacement has reached more than 200 tons. It adopts steam engine and sail hybrid power. The steam engine power is driven by a paddle wheel. The maximum speed under pure steam engine power reaches seven knots. Songjiang route.

The whole city is not to mention small, and basically old buildings,

Whether it is the Shunjiang or other shipping companies, the medium and large river ships of hundreds or even thousands of tons they build can basically only sail in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River or other rivers with good navigation conditions.

Of course, more importantly, he personally prefers to take a boat compared to the train. After all, he grew up by the river since he was a child, and he has a sense of intimacy and even a sense of security for the river and the boat itself.

However, due to the poor navigation capability, the export of local products is strictly restricted.

The downstream channel of the Dongjiang River has a good navigability, and ships with hundreds of tons can run, but the navigability of the section of the Dongjiang River north of Huizhou Fucheng Guishan has dropped sharply.

But rail transport is expensive!

For example, if you go west along the Xinfeng River and then go north along the Zhongxin River, you will come to a large basin, which is the Lighthouse Basin.

Relying on these two hands, the Pearl River Shipping Company caught the tail of the steam age and survived in the coastal shipping markets of the Pearl River and Guangdong.

When he learned about these situations, Wang Tu was furious...

Nima, you are even more shameless than me!

And the predecessor has already done this, what should he do?That's what he was going to do!

So this is very tangled... He also tried to post a call for investment for a section of road repair work before, but unfortunately, no contractor came to the door.

The former magistrate has ruined the reputation of the Heyuan Prefecture government!
(End of this chapter)