Chapter 495: 495 Highways, Railways and Dams
Chapter 495 Roads, Railways and Dams
Compared to the chaotic Eastern Continent, the territory of the Tang Kingdom can indeed be described as calm and peaceful, or even a paradise.
After various countries sold their excess or even not-so-excess grain to Tang Mo, the Tang Kingdom passed through its most difficult period. People here live and work in peace and contentment with the support of food and resume production.
With this year's bumper grain harvest, the rewards brought by new types of seeds have plunged the entire Tang Kingdom into a state of joy.
Farmers who farm the land realize that their hard days are finally over. The state has reduced farmers' labor taxes and even provided some subsidies, which has improved their quality of life as never before.
With extra grain in their hands and extra money in their pockets, these farmers now have the most basic consumption power. In Datang Group’s economic understanding, consumption power represents the formation of an entire consumption chain.
With the promotion of tractors and other agricultural machinery, as well as the construction of roads, the cost of grain transportation has been greatly reduced, and farmers have become interested in vehicles and other production equipment.
Immediately afterwards, Datang Group, which was well versed in this, immediately launched the concept of production cooperation groups, directly spreading a large number of agricultural machinery throughout the country in the form of lease.
On the one hand, this solves the shortage of professional drivers, and on the other hand, it also increases the employment problem of students in the school’s accelerated courses.
No matter how powerful the education department of the Tang Dynasty was, it could not guarantee that all the people in the country would become college students, learn advanced knowledge, and become talented people.
In fact, some people do not like to study by nature. Some people would rather move bricks than write an exam paper honestly.
So in order to find employment for this group of people, Datang Group launched a crash course to provide technical training to this group of people. This set of things is similar to a technical school, which only teaches one skill, and once you learn it, you can get a job.
With this training system, the Tang Kingdom is continuously transporting a large group of skilled workers to places where labor is needed.
For example, excavator driver, tractor driver, cement worker, bricklayer, carpenter...
It only takes seven or eight days for these people to follow their masters to work on the construction site.
After two more months of on-the-job learning, they can become qualified talents, start their own work directly, and train their own apprentices in the future.
The entire system is free, and all those who come to participate in the training only need to help Datang Group train 20 qualified workers with the same skills in the future.
Tang Mo spent a small sum of money to speed up the technical training work of Datang Group. In just half a year, the Tang Kingdom had a large group of "migrant workers".
Compared to those countries that sent their labor force to the front lines, the civilians living in the Tang Kingdom were obviously much happier.
They have never experienced such a fulfilling life: working at sunrise and breathing in at sundown, there is new harvest every day, and they are bathed in peace every moment.
Everyone can deeply realize that the Kingdom of Tang Dynasty is changing quietly, and everyone can see that everything around them is developing.
The dirt road at the end of the village has been paved with stones without realizing it. The hard-working road builders used heavy wooden piles to compact every inch of the road.
This road has nothing to do with the original dilapidated road that accumulated water when it rained, was often muddy, and was no different from a mountain road most of the time.
It has been raised as a whole, drainage ditches have been dug on both sides of the road, the roadbed has been leveled, and the road surface is slightly sloped to both sides for smooth drainage.
It wasn't until the appearance of this road that the people in this village understood what a road was - the thing they used originally was just a wasteland without grass that had been trampled by people.
Both sides of the river have been cultivated and trees have been planted. I heard that this can prevent soil erosion, but no one knows what soil erosion is.
This old man who has lived here all his life saw someone repairing the embankment for the first time. In the past, floods would break out every few years, but he had never seen the government officials caring about the embankment.
What is even more shocking is that far upstream of the river, I heard that a dam is already being built, which will block most of the river water and interfere with the water flow downstream during floods or droughts.
No one knows how much power it takes to stop the river. Everyone only knows that the last flood destroyed the city's unreachable and thick walls...
Someone with good intentions went to see it and came back and said that the dam had already taken shape. It was so big that even after thinking for a long time, he couldn't find an adjective. Finally, he pointed to the mountain peak in the distance and said it was bigger than that mountain.
Everyone thought he was bragging, but no one cared about the huge dam that seemed to be still under construction.
People only care about whether there is water in the ditches in their fields, and they only care about the crops in the fields in front of them...
A high platform has been built in a town farther away, with a rain cover on it. It is made of frighteningly thick steel, which looks extremely expensive.
People in the town say that thing is called a platform, and there is a special road in front of it that has no end.
The road was paved with horizontal timbers, like ladders. An I-shaped rail is fixed vertically on the crossbar, extending into the distance, seemingly endless.
Every day, a steel monster with thick smoke and loud noises stops at this platform, and then countless loads of goods are unloaded from the carriages pulled behind the monster.
Either living cattle and sheep, or a large number of ironware, or snow-white and smooth porcelain, or grain...
The Kingdom of the Tang Dynasty seemed to have endless resources. This kind of steel monster called a train continuously transported oil, refined flour, and spices that were once ridiculously expensive from afar, and then brought these things that only the nobles could afford in the past. The price has been suppressed to an incredible level.
Nowadays, as long as there is a man who drives an excavator at home, eating vegetable oil or even secretly hiding two ham sausages in the cabinet is no longer something worth showing off.
Whoever has a postman who can ride a motorcycle or a tall horse in his family may still be envied by others for more than two months. Now, if someone can drive a truck, he is called a tyrant.
Yes, those who can drive trucks today are still valuable "master drivers", and drivers are still a profession rather than a skill in the Tang Dynasty. An endless stream of people were walking on the flat road. Women were holding baskets and leading their children. Their eyes were filled with peace and contentment that they had never seen before.
There is nothing that makes people happier than having a full meal. If there is one, it is to have a full meal every day.
On the plains, some strange high towers began to appear. Thick cables connected these towers that stretched to the top of the mountains. Soon after, the villages and towns near the towers started to use electric lights.
No one can tell what this feels like. The habit of sleeping in the dark for generations seems to no longer be so reasonable at this moment.
Higher-efficiency transformers made it possible to transmit electricity, and the thermal power plants built on the edge of the mines emitted black smoke day and night, announcing the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty to the world.
At this time, there were no little girls who cared about the environment. Having a smoking factory in front of their home was still a simple dream for everyone.
Because anyone who has ever tried to hide the sweet spot already knows that as long as there is a smoking chimney, the surrounding area will quickly become wealthy.
Even if you just push a cart and sell some wild fruits or eat food in front of these factories, you can earn a lot of gold coins that you could never imagine before.
Of course, if you have enough brains, you can find a master in the factory to study for a while, and then you can work in the factory immediately, which will be more secure.
Due to the labor shortage, the salary for qualified workers in the factory is very high. If two members of a family work in the factory, the family can even have the luxury of eating one meat dish for three days!
No joke at all, this may be the happy life that local people have longed for for generations.
From the perspective of these simple people who have been poor for half their lives, what they see in front of them is almost the paradise of their dreams.
According to the policies of the Tang Dynasty, the state provides subsidies for newborns, and will also provide free education and the most basic medical care in the future.
This was completely unimaginable in the past. Zheng Guo...or almost all countries levied a poll tax. It would be good if they did not hide their household registration when they gave birth to children. How could they expect people to actively report it?
However, the Tang Kingdom abolished the poll tax and even provided subsidies to farmers, which gave almost everyone no worries.
Soon, everyone's enthusiasm for having children began to increase: since there is enough food, the country also pays to raise children, and even the children's education is free, is it worthy of the audience not to play poker with my wife more at night?
In just one and a half years, the population of the Tang Kingdom increased five times! In addition to the "childbirth" efficiency boosted by the affluence of one's own life, immigrants also account for a large part of it.
The Tang Kingdom still has three borders: Qi to the north, Chu to the south, and the Dahua Empire to the west to accommodate refugees.
This kind of business is now almost open to the public. As long as you are willing to come, Datang Group will accept it! But the price has dropped from 2-3 gold coins to 1 gold coin.
The market determines prices. Now that the Tang Kingdom has no population pressure, it does not urgently need population to fill its territory.
But the generals and compradors who had made a fortune from human trafficking on the border were unwilling to end such a business that was beneficial to them. Recently, they have made a lot of money from this business, and they feel like they have reached the peak of their lives.
In order to make these people corrupt faster, Tang Mo was also willing to spend a small sum of money to satisfy their greed.
Whether they are from Chu State, Qi State, or from the more powerful Dahua Empire, now in the Kingdom of Tang Dynasty, foreign immigrants prefer to call themselves Tang people. This is a status symbol and a sign of their identity.
It is now very impolite to ask someone on the street if you are from Chu or Qi because of your accent.
If the other person is a little more grumpy, they may start a fight in the street over this kind of thing. Even the Chinese, who used to be vaguely superior to others, are now behaved and honest in the territory of the Tang Dynasty.
Everyone recognized their identity as a Tang person, and even many foreign businessmen were willing to join the Tang Kingdom and become a member of the Tang people.
Because they soon discovered that the Tang State gave great preferential treatment to its own merchants, providing assistance by reducing or reducing taxes, and would also help protect the interests and safety of merchants outside the country.
To give the simplest example, in the past, people from Qi or Zheng were basically unable to do business in the Mirage Kingdom. But now, humans in the Mirage Kingdom are very safe, and the goblins in the Mirage Kingdom don't dare to provoke them at all.
Like Bunas in the past, Tang State is simply a new Jinshan with a larger area! People who come here to do business find that no matter what they do, they can get huge profits here.
As long as they transport various products from the Tang Kingdom back to their home country and sell them casually, they can make much more money than before.
Everything here seems to be very cheap, so cheap that it is unbelievable: ceramic products that only the nobles could afford in the past are as cheap as free here.
An ordinary civilian only needs to spend a few copper coins to buy a beautiful rice bowl. The flowers on the rice bowl are so lifelike that they are simply a work of art.
In the past, a porcelain bowl like this would cost at least 30 silver coins to be placed on a noble's dining table. But now there are just piles of them in the warehouse, and you can even see the "transportation losses" that are broken all over the floor.
A large number of industrial products have replaced many of the original things. Clumsy wooden boxes have now begun to be gradually eliminated, replaced by more convenient cardboard boxes.
More convenient writing paper replaced the original variety of paper, and with the promotion of Datang Group, it was gradually accepted by everyone.
In more and more big cities, everyone is beginning to accept the luxury of using paper to wipe their butts. Flushing toilets have also made everyone gradually accustomed to a clean and hygienic toilet process.
With the rise of factories, more convenient clothing styles replaced the clothes of the past, and increasingly wealthy people began their own simple pursuit of beauty.
Last year, you could only see men and women wearing identical work clothes in the streets and alleys. Now, many people have spent money in ready-made clothing stores to buy better-looking daily clothes for themselves.
The style from Bunas is smart and convenient, and is very popular and loved by women. These gorgeous clothes dotted the gray streets, and then suddenly bloomed all over the world, just like one morning after the spring rain.
A world that is getting better and better, happier, richer, and more advanced!
(End of this chapter)