Chapter 17                                                             �

After several days of rest, Yu Qian looked much better in spirit and complexion than before.

Zhu Qizhen and Yu Qian exchanged a few greetings, and first talked about the affairs of the northwest.

This time Yu Qian came to the capital, not simply to celebrate Zhu Qizhen's birthday, but also to Yu Qian leave the northwest.

General Yu Qian has been in charge of the northwest for a long time. The strategic environment of Shaanxi has changed greatly and the current strategic environment.

At that time, the three-sided governor was just like that, the Prime Minister Gansu, Ningxia, and Xining, and the three strategic directions were the arm of the Ming Dynasty to penetrate the northwest. The strategic situation was not optimistic. Especially Gansu was even more unoptimistic.

But now in the Western Regions, the importance of Gansu's strategy has become even more important.

This importance is changed from military to transportation, especially Gansu's importance to the Western Regions.

Under such circumstances, the position of the Trilateral Governor also went to history.

Instead of the position of the three-sided governor and becoming the official who became the pillar of the northwest of the Ming Dynasty, the Governor of the Western Regions, stationed in Jiehami, and was in charge of the Ministry of the North and South Frontiers.

Yu Qian said: "The old minister has been in Shaanxi for many years and is committed to Shaanxi water conservancy. Over the past few years, more than a dozen granaries have been stationed in various parts of Shaanxi, which is enough to stockpile more than three million stones of grain, but it is only supplied to the Western Regions, but it is not enough."

"It's not that there is not enough food, but that the roads are remote and deserted. From Xi'an to Yili, there is probably only one stone to reach the food. Although Yili starts to farm, the Northern Xinjiang Dushi needs at least 200,000 stones to have a gap. This gap will gradually decrease later. But how many will it take to be self-sufficient in the future and how many years will it take to be self-sufficient. I don't know."

"In the past or two years, more than 15 million stones have been transported from Shaanxi to the Western Regions."

"These money and grains in Shaanxi cannot be supported at all."

"The money and grain in Shaanxi are only 1.2 million shi of rice and 800,000 shi of wheat, a total of 2 million shi per year, but the money and grain are required to supply military supplies, and the government's expenses, and the surplus is only a few hundred thousand shi."

"That is to say, the starting volume of three million stones per year is the smallest."

"According to my estimates, even if the two capitals have increased significantly, the mainland will need to transport at least one million stones of grain to the two capitals."

"Therefore, the driving distance from Xi'an to Yili is already an urgent task."

This three million stone of grain is naturally not all the money and grain from Shaanxi, but some grain in Henan and Sichuan has to be transported to Shaanxi. Then it is transported from Shaanxi.

This item is also the biggest expense in the Ming Dynasty in recent years, even more than the expenses of Pingdu Zhangman.

Starting from Henan, thousands of miles of transportation lines are all the way to Yili. The consumption is imaginable. The freight is even several times higher than that of transporting goods.

Especially after just pacifying the Western Regions, the consumption was particularly large.

The Ming Dynasty established two ministries in the Western Regions, maintaining more than 100,000 troops. A considerable number of them were Mongolian subordinate troops, but the Ming army also had 50,000. In addition, Zhu Qizhen migrated from Shaanxi to many garrisons, splitting the north and south borders.

All kinds of consumption are even more important than fighting in war.

But the situation has stabilized.

Otherwise, the overhead will only be greater.

This is also one of the necessary reasons why Zhu Qizhen had to negotiate peace with Aci Timur.

It would have been a very consuming task for the Ming Dynasty to maintain its existence in the Western Regions. If it continues to confront Waschi in the Anyanji area, the consumption will be so great that the Ming Dynasty cannot afford.

This is why, with the strength of Han Wu's war in the Western Regions, it can still make the world exhausted.

The method of Chidao was no longer proposed by the first person, but there are also difficulties.

Zhu Qizhen said: "Donald Yu, I have ordered several waiters to inspect the route. Although I have not returned yet, there is one consensus, that is, it is impossible to build a road from Xi'an to Yili."

The changes in the terrain, the problems of climbing large deserts, etc. are enough to make the road construction masters of this era feel a headache. Especially for such a steep hill, it is impossible to climb with the ability of the road.

Yu Qian said, "I know, it's just that the people in the northwest transport food and grass is too hard. There is no way to repair it. Let's put it aside for now. I don't believe it. On the way from Xi'an to Yili, it can't be repaired at all. One inch is better than one inch, and one inch is less than one inch."

After hearing this, Zhu Qizhen also understood that the people of Shaanxi, especially those in prefectures and counties on both sides of the transportation line, were really suffering.

Even if it weren't for the foundation that Yu Qian had laid, something might have happened to Shaanxi, especially in the northwest for many years.

The transport of grain and grass by the government is either an official fortune or a civil fortune. The method Yu Qian mentioned is to transport grain to the northwest one by one between prefectures, counties and garrisons, like a relay race.

Even for many people, they still have to bring their own dry food to serve the government's corvee.

Under the Ming system, the harm of war to the people was not limited to fighting on the battlefield, and the destruction of civil order by the riots and the collapse of the soldiers.

It is also under war to exploit the people.

Zhu Qizhen did not have plans for the route from Xi'an to Yili. It even had it several years ago.

After the Chidao Network was built on the northern grasslands, Zhu Qizhen's plan for Chidao at that time was one vertical and one horizontal.

I dare not think about eight vertical and eight horizontal.

The first vertical is from Beijing to Nanjing, which roughly coincides with the canal route.

One side is from Xuzhou, along Kaifeng, Luoyang, to Xi'an, and to Gansu. Now it is to Yili.

Unlike later generations, Zhu Qizhen was not planning to build a large-scale road in the south. It was not that Zhu Qizhen was biased towards the north, but because of this idea that the transportation capacity of the road in the road was not much better than that of natural rivers. The dense water network in the south is often better than the artificial road.

Another reason is that Chidao is too deeply affected by natural terrain.

It is still good on the grassland and the Northeast Plain, and most of the terrain is relatively flat. Even so, Chidao encountered many difficult problems when crossing a series of mountains such as the Yanshan Mountains.

The same is true for this vertical and horizontal route planning.

In Zhu Qizhen's plan, if you want to build along the canal, this is actually inevitable in Zhu Qizhen's plan. It's nothing else. This transportation line is to connect the two capitals of the north and south.

However, it is also a problem to cross multiple rivers along the way, and the flooding of the Huai River is also a disaster. It is not a smooth road to get from Henan to Shaanxi.

The Chidao from Beijing to Tianjin, from Tianjin to Xuzhou, has been built in sequence. The conquest of the Western Regions occurred when many were not prepared enough.

The key to building the road was moved to the northwest, which was also after the war began.

Zhu Qizhen said: "Okay, starting this year, we will first build the road from Xi'an to Yili."

In fact, from the perspective of specific construction personnel, they prefer or hope to build a chaotic road that is associated with the northern chaotic road, rather than starting from another place.

The construction of Wuerjiu requires a lot of iron wood.

Needless to say, the iron is connected to Zunhua and can be transported directly, while the wood is also transported from Haixi, or Liaodong to Tianjin and from Tianjin.

Transporting timber from the northeast to the inner city is already a major industry in Liaodong and Haixi provinces.

However, starting from Xi'an, the two most important raw materials, ironwood, are definitely difficult to supply.

Especially wood, after all, the northwest is so big, there may not be no place to produce iron. It is nothing more than Shaofu’s construction of an iron factory or transport it from behind. After all, in this era, the amount of wood needed is several times that of iron and grain.

But there is no wood in the northwest.

The wooden tracks of the road need to be weighed and require strong large wood. The entire northwest large wood was used as palaces in the Han and Tang dynasties. During the Hundred Years of the Song and Xia War, various fortifications were used.

In most parts of the northwest, good wood is in short supply.

It’s just this problem, although Zhu Qizhen cared about it, he would not change his current decision. Any factual inconvenience must be given up to political issues.

Although there are inconveniences during construction, the Northwest Chi Road will be able to relieve the heavy burden on the people of the Northwest as soon as possible.

This cannot be changed.
Chapter completed!