I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 224 The First Railway

Zhu Houxuan also talked with Zhu Houzhao about the training of the new army. He had been subtly instilling some later training methods into Zhu Houzhao, and Zhu Houzhao really listened to a lot of them. He was already discussing with him the formulation of an infantry drill manual.

Zhu Houxuan left the new army camp not long after he stayed there. His schedule was very full. The ninth year of Zhengde was almost over, and the workers in Qizhou had been going north for almost a year.

Zhu Houxuan was going to inspect the development of various factories and commend outstanding workers.

After arriving in Tianjin, he first inspected the textile factory and then headed north along the Bohai Bay.

On the way, we came across many places flying the flag of the Ming Royal Group. Many workers were busy in the severe cold, and they were laying railways.

This railway will connect Tangshan to Tianjin, with a designed length of 120 kilometers. This section of railway is on the northern edge of the North China Plain, which is the easiest place to build railways in China, so Zhu Houxuan decided to build the first railway first to facilitate the transportation of steel produced by the Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant.

The second railway is also under exploration and will run from Tianjin to Beijing with a designed length of 130 kilometers.

Although Tianjin is connected to Beijing by a canal, the canal's carrying capacity cannot even meet official transportation needs, let alone private transportation needs. It can be imagined that this railway will be very busy.

Railways are not as technologically advanced as one might imagine. Initially, railways were made of cast iron, but cast iron was too brittle and would easily break once the transport weight increased. Later, they were replaced with wrought iron, and then with steel as the transport weight increased.

Although the Ming Royal Group's research on steam locomotives has been making progress, it has not yet reached the threshold for commercial application. However, the huge transportation needs of the Ming Royal Group can no longer wait for the successful development of steam locomotives, so let's use the Marxist train first. Now the transportation cost of the Marxist train is much lower than all other modes of transportation except water transportation, so the railway gauge is standard gauge. The gauge of the standard gauge comes from the horse-drawn train, which is the width of the hips of two horses. The standard gauge can just accommodate two horses running inside.

Because Marxist-Leninist locomotives are currently running on railways, the requirements for rails are not high. Wrought iron rails are sufficient and can be used for a long time. Even if the steam locomotive is successfully researched and put into operation, the horsepower of the initial steam locomotive will not be too great, and the cargo it carries will not be too much, so wrought iron rails are enough to cope with it. Therefore, at this stage, it is not necessary to use steel rails to lay railways.

Precisely because of the reality of low transport weight, the rails of this railway were designed not to be thick. According to later standards, it is a light rail, with one meter of rails weighing only 15 kilograms. It connects Tangshan, Tianjin and Beijing, plus a 20-kilometer branch line to the Nanbao Salt Field. A total of 280 kilometers of single-track railway requires about 8400 tons of steel.

At this time, the Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant, which had been under construction for nearly a year, was able to fully meet this demand.

Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant was the plant in which Zhu Houxuan invested the most. In the summer, 6000 laborers were mobilized for construction, and after the autumn harvest, another laborers were mobilized for construction. There were a total of steel workers who went north from Qizhou. After this period of crazy expansion, the number has reached more than . Every old worker who went north had to bring three or four apprentices. In addition, more than miners were recruited to dig coal and ore for the steel plant.

With such crazy expansion, Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant and coal mining industry have become the largest industrial cluster of Daming Royal Group. The first batch of 300 million silver coins loaned by Daming Royal Bank to Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant was spent early, and Zhu Houxuan approved the second batch of 300 million silver coins without hesitation.

We have also spared no effort in supporting Tangshan in other areas, so the annual steel output of Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant has quickly exceeded 1 tons and is rapidly rising towards tons.

In fact, this output is not high. On the eve of the Industrial Revolution, Britain's annual steel output in 1770 was 5 tons.

In fact, the resources and manpower that Zhu Houxuan now has are no worse than those of Britain at that time. He has also mastered more advanced steelmaking technology and applied steam engines to production. Therefore, the only thing he lacks now is time for development. If he is given enough time, he can make the steel production of Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant exceed that of Britain in the late 18th century.

Although it was only a fraction of Tangshan's steel production in later generations, it was already a huge breakthrough for the Ming Dynasty at that time.

Of course, the steel produced by Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant at that time only accounted for 4% of the total output. Due to various restrictions, the steel yield rate could not be increased. However, even if a furnace of steel was wasted, it would be good wrought iron, which could also be used to make railroad tracks. Therefore, the rails produced by Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant were a mixture of wrought rails and steel rails.

The Ministry of Railways under the Ming Royal Group was responsible for building the railway. In order to prevent disputes, they planned the land along the railway in the summer and autumn. They used a lot of means and spent a lot of money for this. Fortunately, the land in the north of the Ming Dynasty was not too expensive at that time, so the funds spent were acceptable.

These lands were not planted again after the autumn harvest, and then the Ministry of Railways began to organize people to level and compact the land and lay gravel, waiting for the Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant to produce enough rails, so now in winter they are still organizing workers to rush the work.

The construction of the railway progressed very quickly. If the preliminary work was done well, they could build two or three miles of railway a day.

The sleepers used in the railway all come from Jinshanwei, where a huge timber processing plant has been built to specifically process timber shipped from Liaodong. There are now two main businesses: one is manufacturing standard railway sleepers, and the other is drying timber for making ship boards.

Since the trains were mainly horse-drawn, after the sleepers were laid on the gravel, a layer of soil was rammed on top of the gravel. This was to reduce the damage of the gravel to the horse's hooves, and to make the rammed soil flush with the sleepers to prevent the sleepers from tripping over the horses and injuring them.
The reason for building this railway in such a hurry is also because of the salt industry war next year. The salt produced by Nanbao Salt Field must be transported out somehow, and the traditional method is still too inefficient.

That is why these two sections of railway were planned. Tianjin is the hub of the North Grand Canal, and Beijing is a huge consumer market for salt and is also located at a strategic location.

Zhu Houxuan earnestly expressed his condolences to the workers of the Ministry of Railways who were still working on the east and west railways. What made him feel gratified was that the logistical support was good and the workers' food and accommodation conditions were not bad.

After bidding farewell to the workers of the Ministry of Railways, Zhu Houxuan came to Nanbao Salt Field
(End of this chapter)