What can a train do?

This is a simple question for Xu Li and Pang Nuan so far, that is, transporting troops and resources.

But the question is, can you make a lot of money by just this and make the 700 million back?

At least on this point, Xu Li and Pang Nuan were both skeptical.

But for Zhao Kuo, his idea is relatively simple.

Zhao Kuo felt that there should still be smart people in this world. As long as these smart people discover this business opportunity, they should quickly contact the Ministry of Transport.

The next morning, the Ministry of Transportation.

This is a newly established department. The minister is no one else, but Lu Buwei, who has just transferred from the position of Minister of Agriculture.

At this moment, Lu Buwei's mood was actually a bit complicated.

At a certain moment after accepting this appointment, Lu Buwei even felt that this would be a suppression by Zhao Kuo.

But Lu Buwei soon gave up this idea because in Lu Buwei's view, Zhao Kuo had no need to suppress Lu Buwei at all, not to mention that he had transferred from the Minister of Agriculture to Minister of Transport, there was no change in level.

Therefore, Lu Buwei thinks that the most important point of this appointment should be that Zhao Kuo really hopes that Lu Buwei can make some things for the newly established Ministry of Transport and lead this department to develop some changes that Zhao Kuo likes.

"But now I only have one horse in my hand...the railway."

Lu Buwei sighed helplessly.

As one of the important officials of Zhao State, Lu Buwei of course participated in the ride between the Imperial Capital and Daliang City that day yesterday, but the problem was that even so, he was a little confused about what the Ministry of Transport should do next.

Is more railways necessary?

However, just building a 300-mile railway has already spent 700 million yuan. Does the Han Dynasty really have more money to invest in the construction of these railways?

After thinking about it, Lu Buwei felt that the current focus of work should be implemented in the recovery of costs.

If the cost of 700 million can be recovered, the next railway can be quickly built, and there will be many things to do next.

So the question is, how can we recover the cost?

While Lu Buwei was still thinking about this matter, someone suddenly knocked on the door of his office.

In addition to coming in, an official informed Lu Buwei of a message.

"Minister, there is a president from Datong Coal Group who wants to see you."

After hearing the news, Lu Buwei was stunned.

“Is the president of Datong Coal Group?

What did he come here to do?"

"He said maybe he has a way to solve the urgent need in front of you, Minister."

After thinking for a while, Lu Buwei decided to meet the other party.

Datong Coal Group is a private coal company, but it is also the top coal group company in Dahan. What’s more important is that this company is listed on a stock exchange and has a very high market value.

Another point is that behind this so-called Datong Coal Group is actually the shadow of several top major families in the Han Dynasty.

A moment later, a middle-aged man who looked gentle and gentle walked into the office and saluted Lu Buwei respectfully.

"Zhou Dongzheng met with the minister."

Lu Buwei nodded and spoke straight to the point, "Just say it directly, what's wrong with you coming to me today?"

Zhou Dongzheng smiled slightly and said to Lu Buwei: "That's right. I heard that I can't attract people. I'm worried about how to recover the 700 million yuan cost in the future. I just happened to have an idea to solve this problem for the minister."

Lu Buwei smiled and said, "Then let's talk about your idea."

The Ministry of Transport is actually in a newly built state. As the Minister of the Ministry of Transport, Lu Bu was also at a loss. At this point in time, he didn't mind listening to anyone's opinions, as long as this opinion can help Lu Buwei achieve political achievements.

After all, Lu Buwei's eyes were not only on the position of minister, but also on the position of prime minister.

Zhou Dongzheng smiled and nodded and said, "Actually, this is the case. Our Datong Coal Group has always wanted to open up the market for Dijing City. After all, Dijing City is the main market for coal consumption in the entire Han Dynasty."

Lu Buwei nodded and signaled the other party to continue talking.

Coal is actually an emerging energy source. It was secretly used by Zhao Kuo about ten years ago from the north of Zhao State and gradually promoted to the entire territory of Zhao State until now.

Originally, coal was just an energy source that everyone used to burn in winter and facilitate heating.

So it is a relatively seasonal thing. It has a lot of demand in winter, but when other seasons are not cold, coal sales are basically ignored.

However, with the emergence of the steam engine, this situation changed.

As a machine, steam engines certainly need energy supply, and the energy supply is coal.

Only with a steady stream of coal can the steam engine continuously produce energy through combustion.

With the continuous use of various steam engines, the demand for coal in this market has also begun to increase significantly.

It is precisely because of this that the stock price of Datong Coal Group on the stock exchange has been rising recently, and is known as the most noteworthy star stock this year.

Lu Buwei was an excellent businessman before, and he could even be said to be one of the best businessmen in the world. Now Lu Buwei also runs three groups listed on stock exchanges through the power of his family. Of course, he knows all the best about these things.

Zhou Dongzheng continued with a smile: "Recently, the demand for coal in the Dijing City is getting bigger and bigger, but, Minister, you also know that if the mountain is closed due to heavy snow in winter, the road will be difficult and transporting coal will become an extremely difficult thing.

Originally, our Datong Coal Group also had a plan for this, which was to stockpile more coal in the warehouse while autumn and summer.

But in this way, this method can only treat the symptoms and not the root cause.

We urgently need a way to transport coal on a large scale in winter, but the current society does not have this way. We were already a little desperate. It was not until yesterday that I tried to take His Majesty's train and suddenly realized that it was what our Datong Coal Group urgently needed at present."

Having said this, Lu Buwei certainly understood what the other party meant and said in a deep voice: "So you hope we can use the train to help you carry coal, right?"

Zhou Dongzheng smiled and said, "That's right.

In fact, we store a large amount of coal in Daliang City, because Daliang City is the most convenient place to collect goods in the Central Plains area south of the Yellow River.

If railways can be used to transport coal between Daliang City and Dijing City in winter, then the transportation problem can be greatly alleviated."

Lu Buwei suddenly felt that he had completely understood the meaning of Datong Coal Group.

Datong is located north of the Taihang Mountains and is hundreds of miles away from the Central Plains. It is actually quite troublesome to transport coal from there.

So, these people from Datong Coal Group are very smart.

Instead of passing through the Central Plains, it passed through the south of the desert from the west, first transported to Jiuyuan County in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, and then descended from Jiuyuan County along the Yellow River and arrived directly to Daliang City.

Finally, from Daliang City as a general wholesale market, all these goods are wholesale to every corner of the Central Plains, so that coal can be transported to all needed markets as quickly as possible.

After thinking for a while, Lu Buwei suddenly asked a question: "If this is the case, then why don't you just transport the ship directly to the Imperial Capital?"

You should know that the Imperial Capital City is actually connected to the Central Plains Water Network. When you go down from the Yellow River, you can also reach the Imperial Capital City.

Zhou Dongzheng still had the gentle businessman-like smile and said to Lu Buwei: "This is actually very simple, because the freight required for the waterway from Daliang City to Dijing City is too expensive, far less than that we transported to Daliang City first and then transported coal to Dijing City through other land transportation methods."

Only then did Lu Buwei realize that it was still a matter of money in the final analysis.

Think about it, from Daliang City to Emperor Capital, these two cities are the two largest and most prosperous cities in the Central Plains, so the freight between these two cities must be the most expensive in the entire Han Dynasty and even the entire world.

Lu Buwei calmed down and said slowly, "Since that's the case, then I want to ask, how much transportation capacity do you need to help you carry this coal?"

Lu Buwei originally thought it was a bargaining process, but he got an unexpected answer.

Zhou Dongzheng said gently: "I heard that there are only 20 trains now, so I hope to ship all the transportation flights of these 20 vehicles."

Lu Buwei was shocked after hearing this.

According to Lu Buwei's initial idea, it would be good if the other party could get 5 or 10 vehicles, but he didn't expect that the other party would ask to pack all 20 vehicles at once.

Lu Buwei calmed down and said in a deep voice: "You don't even know how much the shipping fee is, are you so sure?"

Zhou Dongzheng laughed and said, "That's because I did make that train myself yesterday. According to my estimate, a carriage can hold at least 50 carriages.

There are 6 carriages in the whole car, so you can load 300 carriages at a time.”

Lu Buwei continued to speak: "According to the current shift schedule, a car can run around 5 round trips a day, which means that a car alone can load 1,500 carriages.

Then 20 cars can load 30,000 carriages of coal in a day.

Are you sure your Datong Coal Group needs such a huge amount of transportation capacity?”

The coal of 30,000 carriages is definitely an astronomical figure in no matter who it is.

Zhou Dongzheng laughed again, and he suddenly asked Lu Buwei a question: "Mr., do you know how much coal your Lu family mansion has to burn in winter to keep warm?"

Lu Buwei was stunned for a moment and could not answer for a moment.

As a minister, Lu Buwei was worried about national affairs every day. Of course, he had no time to understand these lowest things. Those were purchased by special managers in Lu Buwei's family.

Zhou Dongzheng laughed and said, "I have an answer to this question. There are hundreds of people in the Lu family's residence, and the servants and the like, more than a few thousand people."

And these thousands of people need more than 20 cars of coal to keep warm in a day.

In the Imperial Capital, coal resources are demanded by hundreds of thousands of people in the city at the same time. How big is this market?

Last fall, our coal peaked in the day was selling 8,000 carriages, and that was not the limit. It was just because we tried our best to deliver 8,000 carriages to the Imperial Capital in one day.

In other words, the coal of 30,000 carriages may not be the limit, because during this year, there are no more steam engines added to the Imperial Capital.

Minister, after I said this, do you still think the demand of our Datong Coal Group is too amazing?”

After hearing Zhou Dongzheng's words, Lu Buwei became silent.

After a while, Lu Buwei said, "I can give you 18 cars.

The remaining two cars must be opened to transport guests according to His Majesty’s request.”

Zhou Dongzheng did not object at all, and laughed and said, "This is absolutely fine. If the minister doesn't mind, we will talk about the freight next."

After hearing Zhou Dongzheng's words, Lu Buwei narrowed his eyes almost instinctively.

As a businessman, Lu Buwei knew very clearly that when it comes to price, it is really necessary to fight for an inch of land.

For the next half day, this office became a battlefield without gunpowder for the two sides to have a verbal dispute.

Finally, it was not until the lights were on that Lu Buwei breathed a sigh of exhaustion and said, "Then calculate it at this price. Go back and tell the people behind you. If they have no objection, you will come here tomorrow morning and we will sign a formal contract."

Zhou Dongzheng smiled gently, and his face also had unconcealed fatigue, but more excited.

"Minister, I believe from the bottom of my heart that this will be the most successful win-win business behavior destined to be recorded in history."
Chapter completed!