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Chapter 754 Major Transportation Construction (Part 2)

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    At present, it seems that funds are the bottleneck that restricts development, but in fact changing people¡¯s thinking is the key:

    Many senior members of the People's Party find it unbelievable that a poor country is constructing a four-vertical and four-horizontal railway. Of course, they are very puzzled by Zhang Hanqing's "increasing efforts to expand and rebuild". There are also moderate factions who advocate the importance of economic construction.  Proceed steadily and act within our capabilities, although they can nod at the visible benefits only from a military perspective.

    However, due to the prestige of the young marshal in the party, government and military, as well as the maturity of his forward-looking ideas in military construction and economic planning, especially the strong support of Zhang Zuolin, the commander-in-chief of the Fengjun Army, Zhang Hanqing's plan was successfully promoted, and it also gained popularity in various places.  Fewer obstacles.

    Zhang Hanqing¡¯s enthusiasm for transportation, especially railway construction, which is the basis of the economy, is astonishing. He does not believe that the country is currently unable to make large-scale capital investment.  He believes that borrowing money to develop transportation will, in turn, greatly stimulate economic development, especially since China's economy is in a booming state after hundreds of years of artificial suppression by the "emphasis on agriculture and suppression of business".

    In this way, the time for debt repayment will be greatly shortened, and the developed economy will further promote transportation construction.  Under this virtuous cycle, as long as there is no economic crisis, the future will only get better and better.

    As he said at the People's Party Central Committee Plenary Session in response to questions about the shortage of funds: "Before the market competition mechanism in the railway industry is fully established, the most effective measure to speed up railway construction is to propose a clear development plan based on actual needs.  , the railway department is doing everything possible to realize it. As for construction funds, there is no need to worry about no one buying railway bonds; there is no need to worry about banks being reluctant to borrow money; bidders for engineering design and construction will be squeezed out; material suppliers will also be competing for orders."

    In order to give investors a good start, the central government invested 1 billion yuan in railway construction in 1925, not including the nearly 300 million yuan invested in building locomotives.

    The "Jingu Railway Company" of old China (originally located on the west bank of the old Sancha River Estuary) first imported several small steam locomotives from abroad in 1887, one of which was the "0-2-0" type (only two pairs of wheels,  Without guide wheel and follower wheel, it is called No. ¡°0¡±).

    This locomotive is the oldest well-preserved locomotive that has ever run on the "Jingu Railway" and has been exhibited abroad.  The locomotive is manufactured in the UK and has a total weight of 1320kg. It is also one of the smallest steam locomotives in the world.

    From the appearance of this steam locomotive to the founding of New China, various steam locomotives from Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Japan, Belgium, Russia and other countries were running on the land of China, which was jokingly called the "Universal Locomotive Expo".

    This is a fact.  According to the official history of the 188th issue of "Railway Monthly" in 1949: There were 4,069 steam locomotives in the country at that time, including 198 models produced by more than 30 factories in 8 countries!

    Steam locomotives are an important symbol and key tool of cultural and social progress in the industrial era.  Old China did not build its first steam locomotive until after liberation, which cannot be said to be a Chinese regret.

    The main factor that caused this was the endless fighting between warlords. The limited financial revenue was intercepted by various local powerful factions as military expenses. Then we ushered in the two invasions of China by the Japanese army, and later the civil war. Therefore, the transportation industry in old China fell behind.  It has become inevitable.

    By God¡¯s fortune, Zhang Hanqing, a great man of the next generation, changed the direction of China¡¯s modern history.  He took advantage of this rare opportunity for peace in the 1920s to gradually move China towards economic recovery or a state of great strides to catch up.

    While cars, tanks, aircraft, and light warships were being produced domestically, a large number of top figures in the field of domestic machinery manufacturing were organized to import German and Czech locomotives, dismantle, research, and test them. From the beginning of 1924 to the end of 1927, they used  It took 4 years to build China's first real locomotive "Dragon", allowing China to fill this gap.

    The significance of the success of "Dragon" is huge: not only does it bring China's "heart" to China's transportation, but also greatly promotes the supporting development of heavy industry through its research and development - steel forging technology, welding  Technology, assembly capabilities, mechanical design capabilities, precision processing and very important production capabilities, etc.

    In addition, its success has also inspired the Chinese people's confidence and national pride in building a beautiful homeland through self-reliance, which no amount of money can buy back.

    After the large-scale production of "Dragon" locomotives, as technology continued to mature and heavy industry capabilities improved, large diesel engines, turbine engines and other technologies also came out soon after, directly driving the development of Jiangnan, Qingdao, Xiamen, Hankou, and Jiujiang.  Qualitative technological leaps in shipyards have enabled domestically produced ships to be equipped with Chinese "hearts" one after another.

    Under this good momentum, China's shipbuilding industry caught up and by 1930 surpassed Japan, Asia's largest shipbuilding country, in total production tonnage. This is something to be said later.Of course, the price of the "Dragon" is also huge, and it has attracted almost all of China's talents and resources.  In order to accomplish this feat, Zhang Hanqing withstood the pressure and continued to invest heavily in this project.  So far, the 600 tons of gold obtained from the White Army Kolchak have been invested in various ways, and of course they have received fruitful results.

    In Zhang Hanqing's view, the number of locomotives required for the huge railway network that is about to be built is staggering. Although localization is expensive in the short term and almost uses up gold reserves, in the long run, its benefits are not doubled.  count.

    ¡°He knows very well that advanced technology cannot be bought; even if it can, building such a big country cannot rely on foreign aid for everything. No country has the ability to support a country as big as China.

    Because all walks of life require investment, what should we do if we don¡¯t have enough funds to spend on railway-related industries?  There are two methods: first, use manpower to supplement material resources.  The Central Plains is sparsely populated and sparsely populated, so the state calls on people to go to the Northeast and Northwest to reclaim wasteland and immigrate there, using voluntary labor of public officials and the military to reclaim the wasteland.  There is no oil, chemical methods are used to burn coal, and even rubber fertilizers are used.

    Second, use frugality to adjust the business.

    No butter, eat half a pound less, no chicken, eat one less.  However, 50 million yuan was used to build an oil refinery and 70 million yuan was used to build national highways, but they were boldly carried out.  According to ordinary economic theory, it goes against the principles of nature.  However, in the early days of the founding of the Soviet Union, agricultural products were confiscated and sold at reduced prices in foreign countries in exchange for cash to purchase machinery for the Five-Year Plan.  It¡¯s much more peaceful!

    Of course, the Chinese people are very understanding of the country's difficulties.  A large number of farmers who were allocated land invested great enthusiasm in building New China as liberated productive forces and endured huge sacrifices.  In 1926, when the economy was most stretched, the central government even called on the Chinese people to live frugally and sell nearly half of that year's grain and cotton production in exchange for foreign exchange!

    Compared with railways, highway construction is much inferior.  Firstly, the funds are indeed insufficient. Secondly, although the cost of building railways seems high, considering the geographical and cultural progress brought by the long railway lines, comprehensive transportation capacity, convenience and long-distance strategic material delivery and other factors  , in the long run, its cost performance is far higher than that of highway.

    Therefore, in the early stage, Zhang Hanqing took railway as the main construction direction.

    However, China's highway construction is still developing rapidly: from Beijing to Shenyang, from Nanjing to Shanghai, from Lanzhou to Xi'an, from Luoyang to Xuzhou, national highways have been built in major cities, and national highways have been built between central cities and major regions in the province.  Provincial highways, transportation hubs and coastal counties will also pave cement roads or build asphalt roads depending on economic conditions. If the conditions are slightly worse, a layer of sand and gravel will also be paved on the muddy ground.

    In 1925 alone, nearly 20,000 kilometers of roads were paved across the country.

    It won¡¯t work without paving.  After several rounds of line expansion, Tianjin Dodge Automobile Factory has reached an annual production capacity of 200,000 trucks and 50,000 cars.  Not only that, Zhang Hanqing is already preparing to establish branch factories in Wuhan, Guangzhou, Jilin and Chongqing.  In the foreseeable future, China's automobile industry will have a blowout development.

    Road construction not only facilitates travel and improves efficiency, but also enables the development of infrastructure-related industries, such as cement, steel, surveying and mapping, and bridges. It also provides a large number of jobs, killing several birds with one stone.

    Not only that, Zhang Hanqing also ambitiously proposed the "Highway Plan" that will be remembered by future generations.  This plan takes the opportunity of building a north-south transportation hub from Beijing to Guangzhou to connect provincial highways in various provinces and gradually improve them according to conditions, eventually forming a network of highway lines densely distributed across the country.

    We must know that in the official history, the United States relied on building a similar "highway plan" after World War II to have the opportunity to become a global economic giant; in the information age of the 21st century, it also relies on the "information highway" derived from it.  Plan", it can still maintain its leading position in the world in advanced industrial innovation, manufacturing and design.

    Zhang Hanqing must work hard to create a thirty-year leading opportunity for China!

    In terms of water transportation: the Songhua River continues to maintain a prosperous scene. Harbin has opened water passenger and cargo transportation routes directly to Khabarovsk, the largest Far Eastern city in the Soviet Union; the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, an important inland waterway connecting the north and the south, has also entered ships such as  As the most important golden waterway in the Yangtze River Delta, the Yangtze River, after the Yanlidui in the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River was blown up, 500-ton ships can freely travel between Chongqing and Shanghai during the dry season.

    Anyway, with the boom of China's shipbuilding industry, the water transportation industry has also increased, and its contribution to the development of the national economy has also increased.

    In terms of aviation, China has entered a leap-forward development stage.

    Because of the gradual formation of the aviation manufacturing industry, China's self-built large-scale water transport aircraft "Water Transport II" has opened regular flights between Beijing and Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing and Chengdu, Xi'an, Lanzhou, Beijing and Shenyang, Changchun, Harbin and other places.  By the end of the year, the air mileage reached approximately 16,000 kilometers, making China one of the leading air transport countries in Asia.

    When later generations commented on his foresight, they said with emotion: "It was leader Zhang Hanqing who, with his wisdom and foresight far beyond that of his contemporaries, gave China the opportunity to rise rapidly in a situation surrounded by powerful enemies.  Construction is undoubtedly the prerequisite for the take-off of the entire economy." (Remember the website address: www.hlnovel.com)Regular flights have been opened between Beijing and Shenyang, Changchun, Harbin and other places.  By the end of the year, the air mileage reached approximately 16,000 kilometers, making China one of the leading air transport countries in Asia.

    When later generations commented on his foresight, they said with emotion: "It was leader Zhang Hanqing who, with his wisdom and foresight far beyond his contemporaries, gave China the opportunity to rise rapidly in a situation surrounded by powerful enemies.  Construction is undoubtedly the prerequisite for the take-off of its entire economy." (Remember the website address: www.hlnovel.com
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