I was the emperor in the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 474 Future Planning

The success of the boiler indicates that the birth of the whole machine is sooner or later.

According to the estimates of Zhou Zhen and others, it may take another half a month or so before the prototype of the first steam engine can be completed.

Li Tian is very satisfied with this progress.

However, although the steam engine is about to be launched, it is still far away from the lofty dream in his mind of thousands of steam ships blooming all over the world.

The first is the issue of steel production.

Now the third lady's Chen Ji Iron Works can only produce [-] catties a month with all its efforts.

That's just two boilers. It will take fifty years to produce a thousand steamships.

This is not what Li Tian wants to see.

Immediately after he came out of the proving ground, he made a decision to expand the Chen Ji Iron Workshop.

But the expansion does not only need money. The training of craftsmen and the construction of related supporting facilities, as well as the location of the steel mill and coal yard are also a long-standing problem, and there is no rush at all.

Coupled with the fact that Chen Ji is still under the name of the Chai family at this time, even if he did it directly, he would have no valid reason and could only put it aside temporarily.

The second is that the combination of the steam engine and the ship has not been tested, and Li Tian actually has no idea how it will perform.

Although the performance of a steam ship is theoretically far superior to that of a sailing ship.

But at the end of the twentieth century, sailing ships still did not completely withdraw from the stage of history, which means that sailing ships still have their reasons for existence.

If you want everyone to accept this new thing, you may encounter great difficulties.

Finally, and most importantly, if a steamship wants to start, it must burn coal.

But at this time, the whole of Ming Dynasty had only proven reserves of coal in a few places. If it wanted to supply thousands of ships on a large scale, the transportation problem alone could not be solved in a short time.

However, if you want to sail long distances, it is impossible to supply the supplies in the middle, and you must mine them locally.

As a result, it is necessary to build a large number of supply bases overseas.

And if you want to build a stable supply base, you must have a large number of personnel stationed overseas all the year round.

This is actually tantamount to colonization in disguise.

In other words, if you want to sail the Ming fleet to the whole world, you must first colonize the necessary waterway supply line.

But if you want to colonize, you must let the people of Ming Dynasty know the value of overseas, so as to attract more people to join it.

But how many people would be willing to do this kind of background leaving home, Li Tian is not sure.

Finally, to sum up, if you want to sail far, you must have fuel supplies. If you want supplies, you must open up overseas colonies. If you want to open up colonies, you must let the people understand the value of colonization.

To achieve this, it is necessary to carry out large-scale overseas trade and earn enough enviable benefits.

Regarding this point, Li Tian already has a layout, that is Zhao Wang Zhu Gaosui, the production plan of the new cotton cloth that is currently in full swing.

However, this will create a new problem, that is, the annual cotton production in the Central Plains is limited.

If you export on a large scale, you can certainly earn a lot of money, but this will lead to an increase in the price of domestic cotton and cotton cloth.

It may cause many poor people to end up unable to even afford clothes.

Governing a country has never been an easy task.

In the past, Li Tian took it for granted, thinking that as long as he had enough ships, he could make huge profits overseas.

In fact, there is nothing wrong with this idea whether it is viewed from the original history or according to the inevitable development of the times.

But Li Tian missed a key point.

That is, those huge fleets that were able to run amok in the world in the previous life actually came from small countries.

The main reason why they build ocean-going fleets regardless of the cost is that the profits earned by the fleet after one voyage are enough for the people of the whole country to squander for many years.

But the Ming Dynasty was different. The Ming Dynasty was a huge empire with tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of people.

No matter how powerful the fleet is, the benefits earned are not enough to be shared equally by the whole country.

So at first glance, there is nothing wrong with this plan, but when you think about it deeply, you will find many problems. If you want to solve the vitality problem of some people, this matter must be carried out in a dead end.

From the current point of view, it is not worth the loss for Daming to travel across the ocean to bully the aborigines in the Americas.

Step by step, bit by bit to encroach on the territory of the outer sea, steady and steady is the most in line with Daming's future development strategy.

Food should be eaten slowly, and problems should be solved one by one.

Eagerly wanting to finish everything, the final result may not be what Li Tian wanted.

Ocean trade is being carried out by Zhu Gaosui, and overseas colonization is being planned by Tang Saier and others.

Although everything is just the beginning, Li Tian doesn't need to worry about it himself, he just needs to do a good job to make the people in Daming rich.

Other things let nature take its course and let them develop on their own. He only needs to add fuel to the flames at critical moments.

While figuring this out, Li Tian also understood a truth.

That is, forging iron also needs to be hard on your own, and you don't have any inventory under your hands. If you expand your territory randomly, there will be a fatal rebound sooner or later.

"I can't be in a hurry, I really can't be in a hurry!"

Li Tian is very glad that he understood this truth at the beginning, otherwise, when his own foundation is not stable, he would rashly start the sailing business, which is likely to be an act of courting death.

He temporarily put aside the beautiful picture of thousands of ships going out to sea in his mind, and re-planned the development strategy of Daming in the future.

It is not unreasonable to say that if you want to get rich, you must first build roads.

As long as there is a road, the transportation and circulation of goods between the two capitals and the thirteen provinces of Ming Dynasty will be raised to a huge level.

The circulation of goods represents the development of industry and commerce, and the development of industry and commerce can bring more taxes to the court.

This is a completely profitable business.

It just so happened that the cement workshop was ready to be put into operation at this time, and it was used to build a fast track running through the north and south, and the time was completely ripe.

The birth of the steam engine can not only be used on ships, but also can play a huge role in smelting, mining, transportation and processing industries.

If it is only used for maritime transportation, it would be a waste of money.

With the steam engine as power, Li Tian can start to engage in basic industries.

Whether it is large-scale steelmaking and ironmaking, or the construction of water conservancy and expansion of agricultural and mulberry fields, the steam engine has a huge room to play, only you can't think of it, and there is no place where it can't participate.

(End of this chapter)