My life skills in Daming Liver

This time Su Ze did not go to Su Song alone. In addition to Fang Wanghai, the Minister of Finance in charge of the Ministry of Household Affairs, he also brought with him the Minister of Education Shen Shixing and the Minister of Justice He Xinyin who once served in Su Song.

Sitting in the carriage, Su Ze looked at He Xinyin's pale face and couldn't help but say:

"Brother Zhu Gan, you just called for legislative protection to limit the maximum daily working hours of workers. Why did you take the lead in violating it yourself?"

Everyone in the car laughed. Everyone knew that He Xinyin was a workaholic and worked overload every day, even to the point where Su Ze forced him to take a holiday.

This time, Su Ze forced He Xinyin to go to Su Song to cut the ribbon.

He Xinyin smiled and said, "I will take a good rest now, Commander-in-Chief."

Su Ze made a joke and everyone relaxed a little. Fang Wanghai looked at the workshop outside the window and said:

"This Su Song is really changing with each passing day. He looks different every day."

He Xinyin and Shen Shixing also looked at Suzhou Mansion outside the window through the glass. The three of them had all worked in Songjiang, Suzhou, so they naturally knew the changes here.

Fang Wanghai looked at Su Ze again and said: "Rulin, if it weren't for the Xuzhou and Susong railways, the steel produced by the steel plant would not be sold. I think we should continue to build railways to connect more cities. .”

"I heard that in addition to the Su-Song Prefecture, representatives of the Constituent Assembly in many cities are also calling for the construction of local railways."

Because it was a private occasion, Su Ze said to Fang Wanghai: "Zhang Yue, you must be cautious about building a railway."

Fang Wanghai looked at Su Ze in confusion. Building the railway was obviously a good thing that could achieve multiple goals with one stone. Why did Su Ze say that he should be cautious?

Of course Su Ze knew the importance of railways.

Su Ze attaches great importance to railways.

If the steam engine was the beginning of the first industrial revolution, then the railway was the greatest achievement of the industrial revolution, bar none.

This truth was completely unknown to Su Ze before he became the Governor of the Southeast.

Railways are steel battleships on land, and building railways is similar to building ships.

The biggest reason why railways are so important is steel.

There is a surplus of steel in the Southeast.

Yes, after Lu and his son continued to promote new steel-making techniques and built various steel plants in the southeast, there was a surplus of steel in the southeast.

Forging agricultural tools and firearms does not consume that much steel.

Only some parts of the machines in the workshop require the use of steel.

The construction cost of reinforced concrete buildings is too high, and only some buildings invested by the government will be used.

Apart from railways, there is no industry that consumes large amounts of steel.

Steel was the first industry in the Southeast to produce a surplus, but in this era, there was no place to dump this steel except in the Southeast.

Cannon casting? Are you making weapons to hit yourself in the end?

Su Ze has always been very cautious about the export of weapons.

Technology diffuses easily.

For example, the flintlock gun is actually not complicated in principle. It cannot be made in the Ming Dynasty, mainly because there is no process for making springs.

But relying on the flintlock trophies obtained on the battlefield, Ming craftsmen also repaired the flintlock.

There are even some Ming craftsmen who used beef tendons to make elastic spring locking devices, and they can also rub some flintlock guns by hand.

For many technologies, as long as the direction is clearly stated, there is not much difficulty in following up.

This is the so-called "technology diffusion theory", which means that the first-mover technology countries need to spend more resources to develop new technologies, while the late-developing countries only need to concentrate on "copying" the technology of the first-mover countries to be more efficient. Catch up faster at a small cost.

In the timeline before Su Ze traveled through time, the country he was in was well aware of this theory.

Even if the steel produced is used to cast cannons, it will not consume so much steel, so the best place to go is the railway.

Railways can consume large amounts of steel and drive up the remaining capacity of steel plants.

The Su-Song Railway was built through railway bonds raised from private capital, which cost the Southeast Cabinet no money at all.

This coming and going is actually equivalent to using the money raised from private debt to buy the excess steel in the southeast.

In Fang Wanghai's view, the railway was simply a financial trick, no, a financial magic trick. It was equivalent to letting the Ministry of Household Affairs get a large amount of money out of thin air, or asking the people to voluntarily pay for it.

Su Ze smiled bitterly, and even Shen Shixing looked at Su Ze, wondering why he was so cautious about the railway.

The reason why Su Ze is cautious about railways is because this kind of infrastructure investment is actually very similar to a certain industry.

It was that industry that allowed Su Ze to travel to pre-Chinese times and achieve extremely rapid development that surpassed the times.

That industry is equivalent to concentrating the national wealth and six wallets in an almost "voluntary" way, and even overdrafting the national wealth for the next ten or even thirty years, and handing it all to the government.

The government used this money to leverage the wealth of the people for decades and began vigorous infrastructure construction, thereby completing the urbanization process that had taken decades or even hundreds of years in the West.

So what's the cost?

Everything has a price, and today’s satsuma may be tomorrow’s poison.

This is what Su Ze always remembers after becoming the Governor of the Southeast.

Even before the time travel, the industry that Su Ze hated so much had actually made an indelible contribution to the economic miracle.

It can even be said to be the best path to choose at that time.

Let’s talk about railways again. Railways actually have such attributes.

Building railways also requires a lot of land and steel.

Large-scale railway construction can use a large amount of steel and concrete, consume excess production capacity, and even continue to drive cost reduction and upgrading of steel smelting technology and concrete technology.

The same is true for land. Building railways requires expropriating a large amount of land, which can make worthless land valuable and worthless land valuable, and cities and towns close to the railway will also benefit from this.

Railways also attract a large amount of investment. The Suzhou-Songsuan Railway will definitely make money, and the railway bonds will definitely make money.

In this era when banks have just emerged and the way ordinary landlords manage their money is to store money in cellars, a financial product that claims to provide stable income is still guaranteed by the government and has railways and construction projects as collateral, which can be seen Su Ze didn't need to think about how much investment a tangible project could attract.

As long as the Su-Song Railway gives investors a taste of the benefits, more and more people will invest in the railway.

This point has been verified in all countries in the industrial era from the historical timeline before Su Ze traveled through time.

France during the Napoleon III period, Russia during the last Tsar's period, and Japan after the Meiji Restoration all experienced such a period of feverish railway construction. Even in the above three countries, the railways were industrialized steam locomotives, and the first railway was completed by building railways. One step of industrial accumulation.

But what is the price of all this?

Napoleon III's domestic railway construction drove more than ten years of economic development, followed by the economic crisis of overcapacity. Napoleon III was not allowed to consume excessive production capacity by launching wars, and was ultimately defeated in the Franco-Prussian War.

The last tsar relied on the Siberian Railway to survive. Not only did he consume domestic excess steel production capacity, he also sent "excess" manpower to Siberia, trying to eliminate the progressive forces of Tsarist Russia with one stone, hoping that this railway could connect Siberia. of vast resources.

As a result, the revolution was still unable to be suppressed, and it was even said that Siberia became a training school for revolutionaries. In the end, the Tsar and his family were shot.

The Japanese state of Meiji Restoration also embarked on the path of militaristic expansion.

Su Ze looked at Shen Shixing and asked:

"Rumo, do you think the railway should be invested and constructed by the government or privately?"

Shen Shixing was stunned for a moment and said: "Of course it is a government-run operation. The railway is related to people's livelihood and also plays a huge role in the military. Is it possible to hand it over to private individuals?"

Su Ze looked at He Xinyin and asked, "Brother Zhu Qian, what do you think?"

He Xinyin thought for a moment and said, "I also think the official camp is good, but there is a problem."

"unfair."

Everyone looked at He Xinyin in confusion. What's unfair about building a railway?

He Xinyin said: "We have now built two railways. The Xuzhou Railway was funded and led by the government, and the Susong Railway was built by issuing railway bonds."

"Railway construction benefits the people along the railway, and the cities that the railway passes through are the most benefited."

"Then such a huge investment in the Xuzhou Railway is equivalent to the government collecting taxes and using all the people's money to subsidize the people in the three cities of Xuzhou. This is unfair."

Everyone was stunned now. What He Xinyin said made sense.

Fang Wanghai found a loophole and said: "Xuzhou Railway is preparing to open private transportation during non-war times. Tickets can be sold at that time. Isn't the money earned from selling train tickets the return on investment?"

He Xinyin said: "Not to mention whether ticket sales can maintain capital is a question. If the railway has profits, it will continue to build more railways, increase greater investment, and increase local employment. So for the cities that build railways It’s all very beneficial.”

"If the railway cannot maintain its capital, and even has to spend money to maintain it, it will be even more unfair to other people. A lot of effort has been spent to build and maintain a loss-making railway. In the end, only the people who built the railway and the ironworks that use steel for the railway will benefit. , isn’t this even more unfair?”

Fang Wanghai felt that He Xinyin was a bit sophistical, but he couldn't find any loopholes in his words.

Shen Shixing said: "Isn't the Su-Song Railway model fair? Use the money from issuing railway bonds to build the railway."

He Xinyin added: "It's the same, it's also unfair."

"If public bonds are issued in the Shanghai public bond market, which one is more popular and can be sold, whether the public bonds of Susong Railway or Guangxi Railway are put together?"

Shen Shixing couldn't speak.

He Xinyin said: "The same is true for railway public bonds, that is, places with better economic development will be richer because of the railways, and no one will subscribe to the railways in backward places."

Fang Wanghai asked: "Isn't this what it should be?"

He Xinyin said: "If you are doing business, this is natural, but how can a politician do this?"

"What we in the Southeast say is that sovereignty lies with the people. Do the people still need to be divided into three, six, or nine categories?"

Now everyone was speechless.

Fang Wanghai said: "Isn't it too early to talk about fairness before developing this issue? If so, for the sake of fairness, everything should not be developed?"

Fang Wanghai is the most supportive of railway construction. Railway construction boosts steel sales, drives economic growth, and increases government tax revenue. Of course, he, the finance minister, is the most supportive.

Next is the Ministry of Industry. The Railway Department is a subordinate department of the Ministry of Industry. Railway construction is the achievement of the Railway Department. Of course, the Ministry of Industry also fully supports it.

Su Ze said: "There are some things that we don't want to do well at the beginning, but when problems arise, they become difficult to recover from."

Su Ze was naturally thinking of that industry. When the economy of a certain industry overheats, no amount of administrative orders can suppress the national enthusiasm. At that time, the only way to stop is to hit the iceberg of economic laws and be shattered to pieces.

Su Ze naturally didn't want something like this to happen in the southeast. He said to everyone:

"Let's look at the railway first and then discuss how to build it."

In this way, the carriage arrived at the railway terminal outside Suzhou Fucheng.