"In the 20th year of Yongle, Chengzu led his troops to conquer Mobei again, using 340,000 donkeys, more than 177,000 vehicles, more than 235,000 civilians, and 370,000 stones of grain to follow the battle. When Alutai heard the news, he avoided fighting. In early July, the Ming army chased him to Zibei, Kuoluanhai. When Alutai heard the news, he abandoned all the supplies and horses and animals, so he collected the cattle, alpacas and horses he abandoned, burned his supplies and returned to the army... He won the great victory and set up the army."

Zhu Guoqiang said as he walked into the hall and said.

"Before going to the expedition, Fang Bin, Minister of War, Xia Yuanji, Minister of Revenue, and Wu Zhong, the Minister of Justice, all claimed that it was not appropriate to promote the army because of insufficient grain storage and the army was not successful. Chengzu Zhu Di was furious and forced Fang Bin to hang himself and took Xia Yuanji and Wu Zhong into prison. As a result, what they said was "the army was not successful" was not unreasonable!"

Zhu Guoqiang sighed and said.

"Arutai abandoned all the supplies and horses and animals went north, so Emperor Chengzu had to go back to the court. Why? To put it bluntly, it was because of the transportation problem that Chengzu had to retreat. The nomadic people on the grassland were like wild grass. Even if we beat them, they would escape and hide, but they could never kill them and burn them all. If you have decades of rest and recuperation, they would rise up again and invade the border again, so..."

Pointing to the sand table in the hall, this giant sand table is a railway planning sand table. It was Zhu Guoqiang's preliminary plan for the railway network of the Ming Dynasty by learning from another world before the liberation of the railway plan. The reason why he chose it is

Zhu Guoqiang said with a smile.

"I just want to build a railway, build the railway on the grassland and build it all the way to the Beihai. With this railway, not only can the army be stationed there forever, but immigrants can also enter the grassland continuously from the mainland."

As for the people on the grassland... they change the birds. Well, it is not actually the cage, but only women and not men. Don’t think that the ancients have never done this. According to later genetic analysis, the Y chromosomes of the Han people in the south and the Han people in the north are highly similar, while the mitochondria distribution is very different. Taking Fujian Province as an example, the paternal inheritance of Fujian people is 97% similar to that of northerners, but only one-quarter of the maternal inheritance is similar to that of northerners. This shows that when the Han population spread south, foreign races only keep women and not men. This also explains why the Y chromosome is so pure on the other hand.

In fact, the so-called ethnic integration has never been gentle and elegant, but pure, and is often at the cost of weak genocide. Why in the late Qing Dynasty, people of lofty ideals shouted "protect the country and the race"? This is the reason - the demise of weak nations is the loss of the right to life, and the other is the loss of the right to reproduction. Many times, the two interact with each other, and the weak side eventually disappears...

Now, with the help of technology, facing the barbarians who make a living by nomadic and fishing, the farming people are finally no longer weak on the battlefield. It is impossible for barbarism to conquer civilization based on barbarism. So... Now, it is time to spread the farms of the empire to the distant northern frontier.

Facts from another world prove that farming nations are not only good at farming, but also good at grazing. Such pastures are better for themselves.

Build a railway!

This is the only option to keep the northern frontiers safe for a long time.

Of course, this is also the best tool for the infinite expansion of the Ming Dynasty's territory. Wherever the railway rails extend, the Ming Dynasty can conquer it.

With railways, there is no longer the so-called frontier and no longer the so-called out-of-reach. When a rebellion occurs on the frontier, the army can arrive in the rebellious areas in a short time to quell the rebellion.

Railways, of course, telegraphs.

They will form the nerves of the empire. With them, no matter how vast the empire is, there will be no problem with rule.

Without railways and telegrams, the Ming Dynasty would stop at the borders reached by other Central Plains dynasties in history. Further expansion was just a delusion, at most it would be just a little expansion to the south with the help of sea transportation.

But the railway will fundamentally change all this.

The world is so big, I really want to go and see it!

Not just to see it.

I come, I see, I conquer!

conquer!

I really want to be like a big empire, a real world empire!

To make all this happen, the railway must be built!

"Wei Yuanbo, look, this train..."

Holding a train model on the sand table, Zhu Guoqiang said.

"A train like this has twenty cars, which can carry more than 200 tons of cargo and can carry as many as thousands of passengers!"

"Wow!"

Qian Degong couldn't help but sucked in a cold breath and said in shock.

"You can pull two hundred tons! You can also transport thousands of people! Is the train really that powerful?"

Although Qian Degong had heard of the train, he had only heard of it. It was because His Majesty ordered people to build a railway outside the city, but that railway had not been completed yet.

Apart from this, he really didn't understand what railways and trains were. Now, after hearing what His Majesty said, he was immediately shocked and murmured.

"How could it be so powerful?"

And there are things that shocked him even more.

"This is just the beginning. In the future, he can load more goods and transport more people. Moreover, he can travel no less than five or six hundred miles a day. It is not enough to travel a thousand miles a day for the time being, but it is absolutely fine to run a thousand miles in two days!"

This is also a journey of thousands of miles a day!

Qian Degong, who was so shocked that he didn't say anything for a while, said after a while.

"Your Majesty, this is a thousand miles a day. With the railway, we will be like a tiger's wings when we march north again!"

Among all the generals, Qian Degong was always thinking about the Northern Expedition. To put it bluntly, the reason why he was so concerned was for the title.

There were not a few families left in the past of the Ming Dynasty. He either was killed by His Majesty in Nanjing because of his surrendered captives or was killed by Li Zicheng in the capital. There were not a few families left in any case. However, there were also many heroes in Qian Sheng, but there were only one Duke. If Qian Degong wanted to be a Duke, he had only one way - military merit!

No title will be granted unless you have military merits!

This is the rule of the Qian Sheng Dynasty, and even for this, he even took back all the titles granted by marriage with the royal family for his marriage. In short, the Lord of the Ming Dynasty would not be granted without military merit. In the past, the father of the royal family, the princess's consort, and even the eunuchs could easily win the title again.

At the beginning of the country, the title is very valuable!

Duke of the State!

If you want to be a duke, you have to make military achievements first. Where will this military achievements be made?

It’s the northern expedition to Mobei!

Just go to fight against the Eastern Barbarians and bandits!

If they use their heads to change their titles, they have to change their generations of wealth and glory.

"It's good to have a tiger's wings, but it's not easy to build this railway. Building this kind of railway is different from laying an official road, and it requires solving many technical problems. In short, the prerequisite for the northern expedition is to build the railway first. At the beginning, I planned to build it from Nanzhili to Kaifeng, then from Kaifeng to Xi'an, and then from Xi'an to the north, all the way to the Yellow River and to the grassland. But now I think about it, it's still a bit unrealistic..."

It is not realistic, it is simply unrealistic. Not to mention how technically difficult the railways are, just the iron that needs to be used is astronomical. All iron plants need to be expanded to meet the demand for steel. But one thing that is certain is that railways will stimulate the development of the steel industry. The steel industry, an industrial power in another world, has developed under the stimulation of railways, and the same is true for the Ming Dynasty.

That's a demand of hundreds of thousands of tons or even millions of tons!

The development of the steel industry has also driven the development of coal mining and iron ore mining industries. Railways have driven the development of a complete industrial industrial chain. Under the promotion of railways, the Beizhengmo was the one with wings! It was clearly the industrial revolution of the Ming Dynasty.

"So, the plan has now been made to make corresponding adjustments, and temporarily abandon the construction of the South Line Railway. First, start construction from Kaifeng and build a railway to Shaanxi and Mobei. This will save about two or three years..."

The most important thing is that it can save a lot of steel. In the Ming Dynasty, it is not possible to build railways unscrupulously. It is not because of money, but because of insufficient steel production. Just wait for a few years, just wait...

"However, before the railway is built, we need to strengthen the infiltration of intelligence into the northern desert. How is the situation there now?"
Chapter completed!