My Pen Pal Zhu Yuanzhang

Chapter 443 New Discovery
This railway line not only opened up the transportation route from Yingtian Prefecture to Songjiang Prefecture, greatly shortening the transportation time, but more importantly, this railway also connected Changzhou and Suzhou, two important cities in the south of the Yangtze River, and built a model for the railway network in the south of the Yangtze River.

Many far-sighted wealthy businessmen in the two places had already made preparations for railway transportation and were just waiting for the train to open so that they could hand over their goods to the railway for transportation.

What's more, several large private escort agencies have begun to reform their business ideas. Although their escort routes do not overlap with railways and have not affected their business for the time being, they have also begun to consider how to get a share of the railway transportation.

These escort agencies and wealthy businessmen joined forces to build warehouses at the main railway stations and stations along the line early on to facilitate the storage of bulk goods. The storage fees, cargo transportation fees, and loading and unloading of goods were all considerable business.

Of course, more businessmen, especially the gentry, are still watching and have yet to take action.

According to the plan of the Ministry of Industry, the next railway line will be from Songjiang Prefecture to Hangzhou, and Jiaxing can be connected in the middle.

As railways continue to expand, the transportation of bulk goods and personnel in the entire Jiangnan region will be under the control of the imperial court, and no one can predict the changes that will come with it.

But it is conceivable that once the transportation of goods is in the hands of the imperial court, the imperial court's bargaining chips against the Jiangnan gentry will be further increased. Unless the gentry and wealthy merchants still stubbornly choose to use human and animal power for transportation, they can only rely on the imperial court's railways.

Of course, under the instruction of Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao and the chief accountant of the Ming Dynasty had already done some calculations. A pure freight train has about ten to fifteen carriages, and each carriage carries about sixty to seventy tons.

At the maximum value, a single freight train can transport around 1,000 tons of cargo.

If it were to travel from Yingtian Prefecture to Songjiang Prefecture, it would take about two to three hours to transport about a thousand tons of cargo. If manpower was used, then one ton of cargo would require a caravan of at least fifty people, as well as ten horses with good endurance.

It would take two days to travel from Yingtian Prefecture to Songjiang Prefecture without stopping.

This is just one ton. If you want to transport thousands of tons of goods like a train, the amount of manpower and animal power required will be enormous.

However, the advantages of railways are more than that. Their biggest advantage is the ridiculously cheap transportation costs.

The biggest cost of train transportation is fuel. However, even with the maximum load, a trip only consumes about two and a half tons of coal per hundred miles. Add to that the labor costs and other costs, and spread it out over the goods being transported. That means the transportation cost of a train car per hundred miles is only about one or two taels of silver.

The cost of a train trip of one thousand tons of goods is only a few dozen taels of silver, but if a caravan had to use human and animal power to transport the goods, the amount of silver required would be incalculable.

This does not include the losses on the road. If you happen to encounter robbers who claim that "this road is mine", it would be even more fatal.

Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang had enough confidence to take advantage of the extremely low transportation costs and concentrate all large-scale commercial transaction transportation on railways.

Moreover, the imperial court could further integrate the resources of Jiangnan through the railway network, such as Shaoxing's rice wine and Changzhou's silk, thus forming a large-scale cluster.

In the process of large-scale clustering, there will inevitably be overt and covert conflicts between the imperial court and local gentry due to the struggle for dominance. Zhu Yuanzhang has a clear understanding of this. However, as long as the major transportation arteries are in his own hands and all trade cannot get rid of its dependence on railways, the imperial court will win without a fight.

In addition to railways, overseas trade was still in full swing. The Ming Dynasty had tens of thousands of hectares of sugarcane plantations of various sizes in Champa, all planted with sugarcane.

Of course, the management of the plantations was entirely handed over to the local high-caste nobles of Champa. As for how they managed the serfs, that was none of the Ming Dynasty’s business.

The Ming Dynasty was only responsible for providing funding and technology. After the sugarcane was ripe, it was transported back to Guangxi, processed into white sugar, and then shipped to Western countries.

The Ming Dynasty originally considered whether to build a sugarcane processing plant in Champa, but after some investigation, it was found that although the local labor cost was extremely low, the quality of the labor was also shockingly low, and there was no other industrial chain to cooperate in the local area. Building a sugarcane factory was completely a fantasy. After comprehensive consideration, the cost of transporting sugarcane back to Guangxi for further processing was lower than the cost of building a factory locally.

In addition to Champa, the Ming Dynasty also invested in a large number of sugarcane plantations in Annan. Gradually, an economic model was formed between the Ming Dynasty and Champa and Annan, in which the two countries sold sugarcane to the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty processed it into white sugar and then shipped it back to the two countries.

Of course, in this process, Annan and Champa gradually developed into middlemen of the Ming Dynasty.

The two countries distributed the large amounts of sugar purchased from the Ming Dynasty to Cambodia, Siam and other countries, making huge profits from it.

Zhu Yuanzhang saw this but was not in a hurry at all. This was the result of his discussion with a group of ministers. He allowed Annan and Champa to act as middlemen and earn the difference from other countries.

Firstly, the white sugar produced locally in the Ming Dynasty was mainly supplied to Goryeo, Ryukyu, Japan, as well as further away places such as Johor and Srivijaya.

In particular, white sugar sold to Western countries by sea can often be sold at a price almost ten times its cost.

In addition, merchants from the Arab world would also purchase sugar from the Ming Dynasty at high prices. These were the Ming Dynasty's main markets, and no one else would be allowed to get involved.

However, the markets in Siam and other places were deliberately opened up by the Ming Dynasty to Champa and Annan. Its intention was to bind the gentry and nobles of the two countries to the Ming Dynasty's chain of interests, let them taste the sweetness of sugar, and thus serve the Ming Dynasty wholeheartedly.

The core is to cultivate comprador agents of the Ming Dynasty.

The markets in Siam, Cambodia and other places were used by the Ming Dynasty to discipline and balance the power of the gentry and aristocrats in the two countries. Once the two countries became disobedient, the Ming Dynasty only needed to stop supplying sugar to the two countries and then dump large quantities of domestically produced sugar into these markets to disrupt their second-hand markets.

This is much more convenient than sending troops to fight.

It was economical and profitable. Zhu Yuanzhang found that since he started doing business, his horizon had really opened up. In the past, in order to maintain the tribute system, he had to spend a lot of money on rewards every year. Now, by using the interest chain to bind the rulers of these vassal states to the interests of the Ming Dynasty and integrate them into the Ming Dynasty's economic circle, he could easily control these countries.

……

On this day, Mao Xiang was reading the investigation files sent by his subordinates at the Beizhenfu Division, but these investigations were no different from those eight years ago.

The Jinyiwei and the detectives from Yingtian Prefecture dug up the Guangji warehouse almost thoroughly, but they did not find any suspicious signs. Then they investigated the channels for entering the warehouse and investigated all the people involved at that time, but they did not find anything suspicious.

Everything was no different from the investigation eight years ago, which gave Mao Xiang and Liang Fu a headache and made their Jinyiwei and detectives miserable.

Mao Xiang's hair turned white with anxiety as he looked at the investigation files which were almost the same as those eight years ago, but there were no new discoveries.

At this moment, a detail in the file made him startled and he hurriedly read it carefully again.

After reading it, Mao Xiang let out a long sigh. It seems that he should go to Yunnan in person!

(End of this chapter)