Lord Moyu was forced to open

"Your Majesty, our second railway is about to be completed! From now on, it will only take five days at most to travel from Yunzhou County to the southeastern coastal counties!"

In Bian Jing, the morning court was held.

As soon as the Minister of Works Yang Chaoxian arrived at the court, he excitedly reported the good news to Zhao Jun at the morning court.

Since the opening of the railway from Gaodong to Caiyun County, the benefits that the railway has brought to the counties along this line have been fully demonstrated.

The importance of railways to national defense is a topic that has been talked about for a long time and needs no further explanation.

However, the role of the people in the interior of China in the economy was not gradually realized until after the railway was officially put into operation.

First of all, it is a benefit to the people. The emergence of railways has greatly increased the mobility of the people.

In the past, if people wanted to travel far away, it was an extremely luxurious behavior. The long distance would increase the cost of people's travel infinitely. It was okay for people to choose to rely on their legs, but if they chose to take a car, they would inevitably have to pay a considerable amount of transportation fees, which was a huge burden.

During the journey, there are food expenses along the way, possible tariffs in various places, bandits who block the road and rob people, and other expenses and risks that you can or cannot think of. Each of these increases the risk for the people and merchants who go out.

As a result, most people only dare to move around in places they often stay in all year round, or go to places they are not familiar with at will, because that represents unknown risks.

This in turn restricted the mobility of merchants and the public, who were trapped on their own tiny plots of land for their entire lives with no chance of further development. The local economy also became stagnant, and what was originally good became better, while what was originally bad became even worse.

Even if there are brave businessmen willing to go out and try their luck, most of them end up dying at the hands of robbers on the road. Even if they are lucky enough to succeed, most of the profits they earn will eventually be spent on travel expenses, preventing their industry from continuing to grow.

It can be said that in this era it is too difficult for ordinary people to travel far away, and the risks are too great, which is tantamount to gambling with life and death.

The expenses on the road will almost bankrupt an ordinary family, which is the origin of the saying "poor at home, rich on the road".

The emergence of trains has undoubtedly brought about a revolutionary change in this situation. The cheaper and faster way of travel has greatly reduced the cost of people going out.

The train does not stop throughout the journey and only stops at stations, which allows passengers to avoid the bandits and local forces that may block the road and set up checkpoints on the road, allowing people to travel safely and without worries.

It can be said that the emergence of trains has reduced the cost and risk of people's travel to an extremely low level.

Of course, this also harms the interests of those bandits and robbers who make a living from this, as well as the local forces who rely on geographical advantages to make huge fortunes.

But so what?

The imperial court is behind this train. Do we need to be concerned about them?

What? They can stop a train and rob it?
You have to ask the railway guards deployed along the way. There are almost 20 railway guards deployed every ten miles, and there is a guard station of 100 people every hundred miles.

When necessary, these guard posts also have the authority to request assistance from the nearest garrison.

Stop the train?
Let's not talk about whether you can stop them or not. Even if you can stop them, can you resist the attack of the guards? No matter who you are, if they provoke you, they will directly coordinate with the local garrison to suppress you. If the local garrison can't suppress you, the railway can transport thousands of troops to continue the suppression in minutes until you are completely wiped out. If you think you are more powerful than the army, then just go and stop them!

As for the local forces, if you dare to build a railway, you are against the imperial court. They will take off your hat and raid your house! That railway can transport thousands of people in a minute.

From then on, the imperial court's control extended to wherever the railways were built.

And people can also go out and look for opportunities elsewhere.

Local merchants were also able to take their unique goods to more distant places to expand their business, and the people suddenly discovered that all kinds of novel items they had never seen before appeared around them. At the same time, the prices of things that were originally expensive dropped sharply because of exchanges.

Take rice for example. Although the price could not be too high due to the court's control, local merchants kept the price almost at the upper limit in order to obtain the most profit.

But at this time, the arrival of other merchants who had inventory of grain to sell brought a large amount of low-priced grain from other places to the market, which was like a catfish forcing local merchants to lower prices in order to maintain their market share and compete with foreign merchants for customers.

So people could buy food at low prices.

And when the grain harvest comes, local grain merchants dare not purchase grain at the lowest price, because there will be grain merchants from other places who did not receive enough grain this year who will come from afar to purchase grain, and the price they offer will certainly not be low. If you want to compete with them, besides playing the emotional card, isn't it the only way to raise the purchase price?

The people made a lot of money again!

Did the businessman lose money?

nor!
If he no longer makes a profit locally, he can simply take the goods to other profitable places to sell them. Even if he makes less money, he will not lose money and he may even be able to expand his business territory.

To sum up, the emergence of trains can be said to have only benefits and no harm.

This naturally made other places without railways jealous, so memorials from all over the country flew to Bian Jing like snowflakes, requesting Bian Jing to quickly build railways in their areas. Some wealthy regions were even willing to pay part of the money.

So naturally, the construction of the second north-south railway line began. In order to allow themselves to enjoy the greatest benefits, the richest southeastern counties even paid for the original straight railway planned by the court to bloom when it entered the southeastern territory, and a branch railway was extended to each county.

The most exaggerated thing was that since the two counties of Northern Jiangsu and Southern Jiangsu were extremely rich, the railway branch lines were allocated to the prefecture level, and thirteen branch lines were directly divided out in the two counties. Some counties also clamored for separate lines and even shouted the slogan that they could pay for the construction of the railways in full. Zhao Jun, who learned the news, rejected it with a twitch of his mouth, and the Minister of Works Yang Chaoxian even felt it was a bit of a pity.

With the concerted efforts of everyone, this north-south railway, which is much longer and has more branches than the east-west railway (yes, the ones with the most branches are you two, Southern Jiangsu and Northern Jiangsu!), was completely built in just half a year, and the last handful of soil officially fell yesterday.

After receiving the news, Yang Chaoxian sorted out the relevant information overnight, and as soon as he went to court, he couldn't wait to report the good news to Zhao Jun.

Naturally, all the civil and military officials in the court knew what this news meant. It meant that the national strength of the Song Dynasty would usher in a crazy surge!
Everyone showed happy smiles, and the whole court was celebrating!

(End of this chapter)