Deposed? I couldn't be happier! I wouldn't even be a dog to the crown prince.

"No need! Not only do we not need to feed them hay, but we don't even need to chew the soybean cake!"

Li Chengqian nodded with absolute certainty.

He casually grabbed a piece of dark coal from the nearby coal cart and tossed it to Li Shimin.

"Father, this iron lump has a very picky appetite; it only eats this. As long as there is enough coal and water, it can run tirelessly."

Li Shimin held the lump of coal that had soiled his hands, showing no disgust but rather looking at it as if it were a priceless treasure.

"Great! Fantastic! This is simply a divine vehicle!"

Li Shimin rubbed his hands together excitedly, his eyes shining as he stared at the locomotive.

"Chengqian, quick! Let me go up and try!"

Half an hour later.

Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, the Grand General of the Heavenly Strategy, sat in the driver's cab, which was covered in coal dust, in a manner that was extremely unseemly.

He gripped a cast iron control lever tightly in his hand, feeling the extremely violent vibrations coming from beneath his feet.

As the inkstone continuously fed coal into the boiler.

Accompanied by a long, sharp whistle.

"Besides, besides, besides..."

This extremely primitive, even extremely rudimentary, "Datang No. 1" steam train, pulling two wooden carriages filled with stones, began to run steadily along this short one-mile track at a speed comparable to a galloping horse!

"Hahaha! It moved! My black dragon has moved!"

Li Shimin leaned out halfway, letting the strong wind mixed with black smoke blow against his face.

He excitedly waved his fist, the extreme pleasure of wielding a terrifying power that didn't belong to this era making him feel like he was floating on air.

Although it's not fast, this thing hauls a lot of stuff!

The stones in those two carriages must have weighed at least tens of thousands of kilograms!

If it were a horse-drawn carriage, it would require at least ten extremely strong horses, and even then, they wouldn't be able to pull it across this muddy ground!

The train slowly came to a stop at the end of the tracks.

Li Shimin jumped off the carriage, still not quite satisfied, and grabbed Li Chengqian's shoulder without even wiping the soot off his face.

"Chengqian! How many more of these iron lumps can you make? I want a hundred! No, a thousand!"

Li Shimin's eyes burned with an extremely frenzied strategic fervor.

"With this thing, my 100,000-strong army will have a piece of cake when it comes to supplies and logistics in Goguryeo!"

Looking at his father's unworldly and extremely belligerent appearance...

Li Chengqian slapped away Li Shimin's hand, which was covered in black ash, with extreme disgust, and turned to walk to a huge screen that had been prepared in advance.

"Father, we need to broaden our horizons, we need to open our minds."

Li Chengqian suddenly pulled back the curtain on the screen.

It was an extremely detailed map of the Tang Dynasty's territory.

However, this image features several striking red lines.

"You're only thinking about attacking Goguryeo? That's such a small territory!"

Li Chengqian picked up a baton and pointed to the thick red line that started from Chang'an, went westward, traversed the Hexi Corridor, reached the Western Regions, and even extended to the Tibetan Plateau.

"Take a look at this line."

"This is called a railway. It's the track that the metal lump just ran on."

Li Chengqian's voice became extremely solemn, carrying an immense aura of imperial ambition.

"Father, please think about it."

"If we build this railway from Chang'an all the way to Lhasa."

"This train runs on coal and water, day and night without stopping."

"If any ignorant noble in Tibet dares to rebel."

"You issued the edict to quell the rebellion this morning in the Taiji Palace."

"In the afternoon, the Shenji Battalion's one hundred red-coated cannons and thirty thousand Snow Dragon Riders arrived comfortably outside Lhasa in these iron behemoths!"

Li Chengqian made an exaggerated gesture of holding a bowl.

"The army got off the vehicle without even catching their breath, and that evening they could leisurely enjoy a steaming hot pot of yak beef at the Hongshan Palace!"

"boom--"

This strategic description is extremely vivid, even bordering on science fiction.

It was like an atomic bomb, exploding directly in the minds of Li Shimin and all the civil and military officials present.

Depart in the morning and arrive in the evening!

In this era when communication relied entirely on fast horses and marching relied entirely on two or four legs.

What does the phrase "departing in the morning and arriving in the evening" mean?

It means absolute control!

This means that even if the territory of the Tang Dynasty expanded to the ends of the earth.

Wherever railways can be built, the blade of the Tang Dynasty can precisely strike any rebel in an extremely short time!

"Wherever the railway extends, the territory of the Tang Dynasty... follows..."

Li Shimin muttered Li Chengqian's words to himself.

His sharp dragon eyes were fixed on the red lines on the map, as if they were not tracks, but invisible chains that locked up the world.

This kind of extremely terrifying power of control.

This is an absolute hegemony that truly tramples the entire world underfoot.

This caused the breathing of this emperor, who was considered one of the greatest emperors in history, to become extremely rapid!

"Repair it! Repair it for me!"

Li Shimin suddenly turned around and slapped the trunk of a large tree next to him, making the leaves rustle.

"Gather all the blacksmiths in Chang'an for me!"

"Send all those Tibetan and Western Region prisoners of war to smash stones and pave the road!"

"I will build this railway all the way to the Western Regions! All the way to Tibet! All the way to the ends of the earth!"

This is an extremely domineering, even extremely crazy, statement.

This ignited the passion of the generals present, who were eager to pick up hoes and start digging right now.

however.

Amidst this extremely fanatical crowd, a discordant voice, faint yet desperate, rose to the occasion.

"Your Majesty...it can't be repaired..."

At this moment, Dai Zhou, the Minister of Revenue, was slumped in the arms of several officials like a lump of mud.

His face, as white as an old orange peel, was etched with profound despair.

With trembling hands, he pulled a thick ledger from his sleeve.

This old man, while watching the train run, was already calculating on his abacus at lightning speed in his mind.

The rails were made of wrought iron, and the sleepers had to be made of extremely hard, rot-resistant wood.

Building this one-mile road took a lot of real money!

"His Majesty!"

Dai Zhou burst into tears, let out a heart-wrenching wail, and nearly fainted.

"This railway, just one mile long, would require tens of thousands of kilograms of refined iron! Not to mention the labor, timber, coal..."

"If we really built a bridge from Chang'an to the Western Regions, to Tibet..."

Dai Zhou swallowed hard, and then felt a wave of dizziness wash over him.

"Even if we poured all those mountains of gold we brought back from the Western Regions a few months ago into this scheme, it wouldn't be enough to fill a gap in our teeth!"

"Your Majesty! The national treasury... the national treasury is about to be empty again!"

Looking at Dai Zhou's miserable appearance, as if his own father had died.

Li Shimin's extremely fanatical mind was instantly doused with cold water.

Yes, this thing is great, but the cost is astronomical.

Even if you sold the entire Tang Dynasty, you still couldn't afford to repair this steel dragon that runs through the empire.

Li Shimin rubbed his hands awkwardly and looked at Li Chengqian with some helplessness.

"Chengqian... Old Dai has a point. We may be rich now, but we can't afford to spend like this."

Li Chengqian looked at Dai Zhou's expression, which seemed ready to die for his cause, and gave a disdainful sneer.

"Old Dai, that's all he's good for. All he does is stare at that little bit of dead money in the national treasury."

Li Chengqian waved his hand casually, his extremely confident and greedy demeanor making Dai Zhou's heart skip a beat.

"What are you afraid of not having money?"

"How can the imperial court foot the bill for such a massive project as building railways, which will benefit generations to come?"

Li Chengqian's lips curled into an extremely cunning, even vampire-like, wicked smile.

"We could issue 'Special Treasury Bonds for the Construction of Datang Railways'."

"Let those remnants of the Five Clans and Seven Noble Families who cry poverty every day, let those wealthy merchants from Jiangnan, and those nobles who have just made a fortune in the Western Regions all take out their money to invest."

"Draw them a big pie in the sky, promising them extremely generous dividends."

Li Chengqian stroked his chin.

"When it comes to harvesting韭菜 (a metaphor for exploiting people), I'm a professional."