In the early spring of the eighth year of Xining, the Song Dynasty court approved a series of projects including the reconstruction of the Great Wall and the road to Xijinfu after a resolution. The entire project will last for five years, with a total cost of about 40 million yuan. Among these projects, one of the cement roads from Kaifeng, Biandu to Xiangzhou, Xingzhou, Zhending Prefecture, and Hejian Prefecture to Xijinfu. When passing through the entire cement main road, it is necessary to connect important cities such as Daming Prefecture and Longde Prefecture with cement branches. In this way, the Hebei roads will be integrated with this cement road. If Hebei merchants set out from the Zhending Prefecture, they can reach the ferry on the other side of Hebei in Kaifeng, Biandu, within three days, and then there is a cement road. They can drive normally regardless of rain or snow, but the speed is just a little slower.

This is a main road related to the strategic security of the Song Dynasty. Based on the same idea, it also requires a cement road from the Xijing Luoyang as the starting point, through Henan Prefecture, Hezhong Prefecture, Jinzhou and Yan'an Prefecture to the former capital of Xixia Xingqing Prefecture. These two main cement roads will undertake the transportation safety of the Song Dynasty and the northwest, and will completely revitalize the economy of the Song Dynasty and the northwest through these two roads, accelerate logistics, and keep it closer to the central part of the Song Dynasty.

Not to mention the role of renovating the Great Wall. Foreign wars have been at a disadvantage since the founding of the Song Dynasty. Moreover, because of Shi Jingtang and Li Yuanhao, the Great Song Dynasty has never had control over the Great Wall. Most of the Great Wall is in the territory of Liao and Western Xia. The Great Wall in the Song Dynasty is only a pitiful length of less than two hundred miles. This section of the Great Wall is still near the junction of Liao and the Three Kingdoms of Western Xia and Song Dynasty, and has no value at all.

Since the Khitans and Dangxiang people were still nomadic peoples, although they transformed into agricultural civilization, due to the interference of their internal forces, they had repeated many times in the process of transforming into agricultural civilization. The Great Wall was not important to the Liao Kingdom and the Xixia Kingdom, so they rarely did the repair of the Great Wall. This can be explained by the fact that the Song army had never had a relatively large battle near the Great Wall in the war between the Song army against the two countries.

The Liao Kingdom and Xixia were not clear about the importance of the Great Wall, but the Song Dynasty attached great importance to the role of the Great Wall. As a strategic barrier, this was of great benefit to the Song Dynasty. In particular, the Song army had the secret of making firearms, and the emergence of machine tools greatly reduced the cost of making arrows for bed crossbows. The Song army relied on the city wall to defend the city wall. As long as the command was properly, the nomadic peoples would undoubtedly be bleeding when they encountered the Great Wall.

However, the Great Wall has not been well repaired since the end of the Tang Dynasty. Although it has not been specifically investigated, the degree of damage is extremely serious. It is still difficult to say how much it costs to restore the original appearance of the Great Wall. Therefore, there is no specified number for the imperial court's budget for the Great Wall repair. It is just based on 15 million jin, and it is not enough to add it.

Only Wang Jinghui can enjoy such a huge project in the Song Dynasty. The large consortium he organized has prepared 6 million chunks of start-up capital, and the army of slaves in his hands to digest the project will naturally have the least impact on the foundation of the Song Dynasty. However, in this transaction, Wang Jinghui did not invest money, but used slaves as a shareholding, accounting for 40% of the shares. The other project start-up was jointly formed by merchants in the consortium.

Like Wang Jinghui's issuance of gold and silver notes in the two major banks, this transaction was also an experiment - an innovation in business model! Because in the Song and Liao War, the Song Dynasty captured a large number of Liao troops, and the total number could reach 200,000. In addition, the high-ranking officials of the Song Dynasty ruled the Sung Dynasty for suppressing the Khitans, the Khitans or other ethnic groups who had violated the rights of the Han people in the past were liquidated. These people were also classified as prisoners of war and joined the slave army, which also brought the slaves obtained in this war to nearly 300,000.

The issue of slavery has now been clear in the Song Dynasty's ruling senior officials and directly handed it to the prince-consort. In fact, the Song Dynasty court controlled these slaves, and all the evil people were made by Wang Jinghui. Of course, although Wang Jinghui became a villain, there were still many benefits. In the past few years, the court rewarded him with many fields in the process of dredging rivers and silting fields. Otherwise, Wang Jinghui, the title of "the number one landlord of the Song Dynasty", would have to wait for a few years.

This time, Wang Jinghui decided to use these slaves to make extra money for the Song Dynasty court and himself, so Manager Li and others came up with a very complex slave operation model. In the past, these slaves built river embankments, roads and other facilities in the Song Dynasty under the control of the Song Dynasty court, but other than that, they could not bring any income to the Song Dynasty court, but only reduced the construction cost a lot.

This time, Wang Jinghui's name used this slave to exchange for 40% of the shares. Nearly half of the project funds of 30 to 40 million guan oil were flowed back to the court after the project was completed, further reducing the cost of the project. The food problems of these slaves during the project became a matter for consortium merchants. The Song Dynasty court could also not have to bear the food problems of the prisoners in the past few years.

At first, the Song Dynasty had very different internal differences in deciding whether to build main cement roads and repair the Great Wall. There was no doubt that this was a huge investment project. Fortunately, the Song Dynasty court held hundreds of thousands of prisoners in its hands. Otherwise, it might be a tyrannical project like the Grand Canal by requisitioning civilians alone. Even so, the various materials required in the project were astronomical. With the current fiscal surplus of less than 20 million yuan, the Song Dynasty's finance will have to hover at an extremely dangerous level for several consecutive years. Once there are any natural disasters and man-made disasters, the Song Dynasty's finance will definitely return to the deficit level, and the progress of the project will be greatly affected.

However, these projects are extremely beneficial to the Song Dynasty. Repairing the Great Wall will give the Song Dynasty a front to prevent the invasion of the northern nomads invasion south. Although Wang Jinghui is still very suspicious of the Great Wall's defense ability, it is more cost-effective to focus on the establishment of the hot weapons army with this mind. However, the performance of the muskets used in the Song Dynasty army is still very unreliable, and at least the effect will be greatly reduced in the rainy season. Furthermore, the Great Wall, as the most backbone of the northern nomads in this era, also has its irreplaceable effect. Before the Song Dynasty army obtained reliable hot weapons, the strategic defensive effect of the Great Wall is temporarily irreplaceable.

In Wang Jinghui's eyes, the repair of the Great Wall can slow down a little. However, traffic roads are imperative. If there is no smooth transportation network, the Song Dynasty's ability to control these newly incorporated territory will greatly weaken. Once a war breaks out, various materials and personnel cannot be sent to the front line due to road questions, which is a pity. In the past, the slave engineering army led by Wang Jinghui has been busy with the male concubines and built countless roads and bridges in order to cooperate in the development of the south for armed immigration. Now the Xiang army has begun to enter the south in the south.

As we entered the stage, there was a small settlement every fifty or sixty miles, and there were roads connected in the middle. It was just like these settlements and the roads between them built a huge network in the south. I dare not say that the Song Dynasty had completely controlled the south, but it was true that the southwest barbarians could not cause trouble to the Song Dynasty. There is reason to believe that this network is invincible\0 dragons. The Piaotian literature and the Song Dynasty's military and culture undoubtedly became a huge network. In this tempting network, any nation will inevitably be assimilated or destroyed in the end.

It is much easier to build roads in the north than in the south. The reason why Wang Jinghui did not make much move on the northern roads in the past was because the environment in the north was not peaceful. Now that the Western Xia was destroyed, the Liao Kingdom had been severely weakened by the Song Dynasty, and all the land south of the Great Wall was lost, which made the north of the Song Dynasty more stable. Based on Wang Jinghui's inference, the Jurchens who overthrew the Liao Kingdom and established the Jin Dynasty in history were still relatively weak, and the Yuan and Meng powerful people could not even find a shadow. Perhaps the Shubu people were their ancestors, but now the Shubu people fought against the Khitans in the Battle of the Yellow River, and both sides were seriously injured. According to this estimate, the northern part of the Song Dynasty should be safe in the next forty or fifty years, and there would not be strongly rising nomadic people around to threaten the Song Dynasty. Now it is time to build a transportation network. - Piao Tianwen - included

Due to the adoption of the business operation model of the letter, the Song Dynasty court, in addition to the Great Wall whose repair scale is not yet certain, could finally save 30% of the funds for road construction only. Based on the five-year project cycle, the project drag in every year will be less than 55 cents. Such project investment is not a burden to the Song Dynasty, and the financial risk factor has been reduced to a point that the top leaders of the Song Dynasty ruled can tolerate.

At the same time, the Song Dynasty had a great harvest in the Song Dynasty, and Rudi, who had newly incorporated into the Song Dynasty, was also quite considerable. Especially the Yanyun area has developed agriculture, which can make up for the shortcomings of Hebei that have been hit by disasters for years. However, the newly recovered land is not all good, at least one of them - the population on these lands is really unsatisfactory.

In the Song Dynasty ten years ago, the population ratio of the northwest army and supervisors bordering the Xixia at that time was far lower than that of the core area of ​​the Song Dynasty. There was only one city with a hot entrance of over 100,000 in the northwest, and only four or five cities with a 50,000 in the northwest. This ratio is too low compared to the vast northwest. The population of the Song Dynasty was such a population base, and it was unimaginable to put it in Xixia. The population of the Xixia nationwide was not as large as that of Qinfeng Road. It can be imagined that after the Song Dynasty merged with Xixia, the territory expanded a lot, but the population density in the northwest was diluted by the newly added Xixia land.

In the just-concluded Song-Liao War, the land obtained by the Song Dynasty was smaller than the overall area of ​​Xixia, but the Yanyun area south of the Great Wall was originally the role of the Liao Dynasty's agricultural base. The population density here is one of the most populous areas in terms of the huge ruling territory of the Liao Dynasty. Even the population density around Dading Prefecture, the center of Liao Dynasty may not be as good as Nanjing Road, so the problem here is not as prominent as that in Xixia. However, the Yanyun area is not an isolated area, it is connected to Xijing Road in the east.

In terms of urban layout, the Sanggan River is used as a link to connect the invincible dragon of the Datong Prefecture of the Liao Kingdom with the Xijin Prefecture of the Liao Kingdom. Nanjing Road is easier to say, and the area north of the Great Wall of Xijing Road has become a waste of money for the Song Dynasty. The worst thing is that the Song Dynasty had to occupy Xijing Road and use it as a buffer area to cover the Hetao Plain area. If the area of ​​Xijing Road plus the Dingxi Army swept across Xijing Road like a locust, the entire area can be called the land of Hebei Province.

Under the halo of victory, the senior ruling leaders of the Song Dynasty did not realize the relationship between the rule of territory and population. Wang Jinghui also had a lot of questions about this question. After all, he felt that this was not a long-term thing. If he wanted to effectively rule a region, there must be a certain number of people living there for a long time, so that the Song Dynasty's ownership of this place can be demonstrated.

Fortunately, the Xiangjun military farming policy, which has been almost ten years since the beginning of the third year of Zhiping, has increased rapidly in the population of the northwest and Hebei. Due to the very low tax rate and sufficient land distribution, and the Song Dynasty court and related merchant groups gave the Xiangjun various policies and financial resources, the Song Dynasty has now begun to enjoy the dividends brought by the Xiangjun military farming in the northwest and Hebei. The Xiangjun military farming policy has compensated for the population to a certain extent. The most important thing is that since the second year of Xining, Wang Jinghui and Fu Bi reached a series of related alliances. In order to digest the cotton, peanuts and other economic crops produced by the Xiangjun farming, a large number of large workshops were established in important cities in the northwest. This is to turn several cities in the northwest into textile and oil commercial centers in the north of the Song Dynasty, thereby driving the economic development of relevant regions.

With these two factors, the population in the northwest and north of the Song Dynasty was barely able to pass, but if you want to really develop the northwest and north, you must develop the economy to drive the local population growth. In this way, you must rely entirely on the two cement main roads to be built in the north and northwest. Therefore, Wang Jinghui attaches more importance to the construction of these two main roads than anyone else. Behind them is the key to whether the Song Dynasty can gain a foothold in the north and northwest for a long time, and it is also the key to whether the grassland nomadic people can be blocked from the south outside the central area of ​​the Song Dynasty. After all, the outer defense line is placed farther, which is conducive to protecting the foundation of the Song Dynasty from impact. As long as the vitality is still there, the hematopoietic function in the central area is still intact. With the help of a developed transportation network, blood transfusion from the central area to the outer defense line to fight against the nomadic peoples, this can be fought into a protracted war - the grassland people cannot withstand such protracted war.

In the history that Wang Jinghui knew, it was also after the Yuan Meng destroyed the Jin Dynasty and obtained resources north of the Yangtze River that he could stalemate with the Southern Song Dynasty for half a century. If the firearms were not enough to resist the grassland cavalry, the most effective way was to take a two-pronged approach to protracted wars and economic blockade wars. The grassland nations could hold on for no more than ten years. Of course, the Song Dynasty had other choices over the long period of time. After all, if the current momentum continued, the Song Dynasty would completely control the south, and there was also the vast Nanyang to serve as the rear base of the Song Dynasty, continuously providing various materials and food for the Song Dynasty.

"If history cannot resist, then if the confrontation between Yuan and Song really repeats itself in this time and space, how can the Yuan Meng waste more than the Song Dynasty!" Wang Jinghui thought fiercely in his heart. In fact, even he himself was very sure that the trouble caused by the grassland nomadic people to the Song Dynasty in the future would be the end. Of course, some small-scale invasions were not ruled out. However, after the Song Dynasty acquired the Yanyun area and consolidated its strength here, it would be impossible for a country like the Liao Kingdom, which was established by the grassland nomadic people on par with the Song Dynasty.

Compared with the Song Dynasty, the Liao Kingdom lived in Xining for eight years, which was extremely bleak. Even the Liao emperor Yelu Hongji, who has always been known for his luxurious life, had to live a simpler life after two consecutive wars between the Shuburen and the Song Dynasty in Xining for seven years. However, the "simplicity" here is just for the previous life. In fact, Yelu Hongji still likes hunting, but unfortunately he can no longer hunt geese on the banks of the Sanggan River in early spring, because it is completely under the rule of the Song Dynasty.
Chapter completed!