No way

Author: Potato Sweet Potato Pie

No way

The road surface here in the eastern suburbs has changed drastically. About 80% of the road surface has been paved with cement.

A carriage and three sedan chairs came out from Chaoyang Gate, and they saw the houses and buildings in the eastern suburbs. The three cabinet ministers looked like Grandma Liu entering the Grand View Garden, lifting the curtains of the sedan chairs and looking at them non-stop.

They lived in Xicheng. After all, the east was rich and the west was rich. Most of the officials and ministers of the Ming Dynasty gathered in Xicheng, but they rarely visited the eastern suburbs.

This is not like the western suburbs. After all, there is Yuquan Mountain in the western suburbs. You can go up there and enjoy the scenery. What does the eastern suburbs have?

It's nothing more than a vast expanse of wilderness, farmland, woods, and canals.

But now that I have come here, I never imagined that the eastern suburbs would be like this. It is completely earth-shaking.

When they actually entered the eastern suburbs and walked, the three pavilion elders felt that something was wrong. Why was this sedan so stable?

Even walking on the stone road in the capital was not as smooth as it is now.

The stone road in the capital has been in disrepair for a long time, and there are many potholes on it. Sometimes the bearers carrying the sedan will inevitably step on the potholes, causing the sedan to bump.

Not to mention the official dirt road.

For example, on the ten-mile journey from Chaoyang Gate, the sedan will bump up from time to time.

But now that I have entered the eastern suburbs and walked for a while, it seems that there has never been any bumps.

The three pavilion elders unanimously stretched out their heads to look at the ground, and soon they saw the green road.

It is like a stone road, but there are no gaps where the stone slabs are connected. It is like a solid whole. There are countless small stones visible in it, but they are embedded in the road.

"Stop the sedan, stop the sedan."

Liu Jian couldn't sit still anymore and asked the bearer to stop the sedan. After he got off the sedan, he got out of the sedan and stared at the road at his feet.

The several bearers next to him spent time with Liu Jian day and night. Although they were respectful, they were not afraid of the prime minister. They smiled and said: "Master, this road is really safe to walk on. Little people have never seen such a road. Sir, please

You are well-informed, please tell the little people what kind of road this is."

At this time, Li Dongyang also stopped his sedan chair and came over, "Mr. Liu, I'm afraid this is the lapis lazuli road."

"Yes, I guess so too."

As he spoke, Liu Jian squatted down, lifted up his wide sleeves, and knocked on the ground a few times with his fingers. It was very dull, and he couldn't even hear any sound. It was not like the clanking sound of bluestone, and it felt very thick.

Xie Qian also got off the sedan and walked over, studying with his two colleagues. Liu Jian kept looking along the road, and then said: "If this is the lapis lazuli road, just like what your Majesty said today, if this road can be paved in the world,

It will be a great cause that will benefit the present generation and benefit the future generations."

Li Dongyang and Xie Qian both agreed with this. Seeing is believing, hearing is believing. When they just heard the words Lapis Lazuli Road, they had no idea in their minds. They were just thinking, what is this?

Now that I finally saw the Lapis Lazuli Road, I realized that what Emperor Hongzhi said was true. This road was indeed many times better than the so-called official dirt road with smooth roads.

"It's just that the road is so thick and flat, I'm afraid it will cost a lot of money and be very valuable."

“How can we build roads if there is no money in the national treasury?”

Hearing this, Li Dongyang snorted, "Maybe you don't know what that guy said to me. There is no money in the national treasury, so we should find a way to make the national treasury have money. This is to share the country's worries. This is his original intention

talk."

Xie Qian continued: "What he said is easy. Years are chaotic and years are bad. Your Majesty is benevolent. He reduces and exempts taxes for the people in the disaster-stricken areas every year. The annual revenue of the national treasury is naturally reduced. What he wants to do is to apportion it to the people.

Exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes?"

"Mr. Xie Ge, please don't talk nonsense. This junior has no such intention."

At this time, Xia Yuan finally walked over belatedly and asked: "Three pavilion elders, what do you think of this lapis lazuli road?"

After a while of silence, Liu Jian said: "I know what you mean, and I also admit that this road is excellent, but this kind of road will inevitably cost a lot of money. We have to wait and do it. It is because the national treasury has no money, so it is difficult.

"

"This journey is somewhat expensive, but it is not as expensive as some elders imagined."

After thinking about it, Xia Yuan gave an example: "Take the road in the eastern suburbs as an example. Paving a mile of lapis lazuli road on a five-foot-wide road requires about three thousand stones of lapis lazuli and costs about one hundred.

Twelve taels of silver."

Liu Jian said in disbelief: "Just a few hundred taels?"

"Yes, if you pave more at one time, the cost will be lower, and you can save three to five taels. Of course, this is just the cost of buying lapis lazuli. If you include labor costs, it will be even more.

If a hundred people are hired to lay the paving work, they will pay one tael of silver per month.

If you are skilled, as long as you have enough lapis lazuli, it shouldn't be a problem to cover ten miles of land in a month, but the cost of building one mile of land will need to be increased by ten taels."

One stone is one hundred and twenty kilograms. The pound in the Ming Dynasty is six hundred grams. One stone is equal to seventy-two kilograms. Fourteen stones is about one ton. Three thousand stones is equal to two hundred and fifteen tons.

One tael of silver and twenty-eight stones of cement, this price can only be said to not be a loss. If it is a profit, it is a small profit but quick turnover.

Now dozens more fire kilns have been built, and hundreds of fire kilns are in operation day and night, with a daily output of only about 3,500 to 600 shi.

There are about 1,200 people working in this kiln factory, so after all calculations, the cost is all in labor.

The raw materials for making cement really don't cost a penny. All you have to do is organize people to transport them, and then organize people to smash them.

"Building this road not only requires lapis lazuli, but also sand and gravel. The road is one foot thick, five feet wide, and one mile long. It takes three thousand stones of lapis lazuli and about ten thousand stones of sand and gravel.

.

But sand and gravel do not require silver. When the time comes to lay the road, they can be mined nearby and mixed with lapis lazuli."

The three pavilion elders didn't say anything, they just calculated the accounts silently in their hearts. One mile requires more than one hundred taels of silver, so they calculated it as one hundred taels, which was easier to calculate.

One hundred miles is ten thousand taels, and one thousand miles is one hundred thousand taels.

It doesn't seem expensive. It costs only a million taels to lay tens of thousands of miles.

They first imagined that the lapis lazuli road would cost one hundred thousand taels to lay in the west of the city. The total length of all the nine, vertical and five roads in the west of the city would be about three to five hundred miles, and one mile of land should cost at least several hundred taels of silver.

But now I found that it was several times less.

If Xia Yuan knew the thoughts of these three old men, he would definitely spit. Not to mention that there are problems with this algorithm, and secondly, the roads in this world can not be paved for tens of thousands of miles, but hundreds of thousands of miles.

If we count all the official roads in the world and the main roads in all states and counties, there are 1,500 counties in the Ming Dynasty. According to the main roads of each county, the total length and width of the county are 100.

Calculate.

There are at least half a million miles in the world, or even millions of miles.

In later generations, China only counted highways, which were more than ten million miles. These tens of millions of miles only refer to asphalt roads, and do not include those auxiliary roads and roads in markets.

In this era of inconvenient transportation, even if you divide by ten, twenty, thirty, or forty, it is an astronomical figure.

Based on the annual revenue of the state treasury, even if it is used for nothing else but road construction, it will take several years to save to complete the road construction.

Seeing the frowning and thoughtful expressions of several people, Xia Yuan felt that there was a way to do this and waited silently.

After a long time, Liu Jian seemed to come to his senses, and Xia Yuan immediately asked: "What did Mr. Ge think about it? But he agreed to the road construction?"

"No."

"?"
Chapter completed!