Shanghai Prefect Li Yan placed a plan to apply for the construction of a carriage line on the table. Li Yan was originally a magistrate of Shanghai, but now Shanghai has been upgraded to a prefecture. He became the prefect of Shanghai directly. The original Songjiang Prefecture was reduced to Songjiang County, but it was under Shanghai. The current Shanghai Prefecture Office has risen to another level, and Li Yan has been upgraded to be a senior official of the third rank without leaving the Shanghai Prefecture Office.

Originally, he was a small seventh-grade sesame official, and now he has become a third-grade magistrate. You should know that ordinary prefects have only ranks from fourth-grade to fourth-grade. He, as a prefect, is two to three levels higher than ordinary prefects.

Tongzhi Yang Wencong shook his fan and said, "Premier Li, if you want to build a rail carriage line, you need to dig out all the paved bluestone floors, lay the tracks, and then cover the ground. Wouldn't this be a waste of money?"

"But, this matter was nodded by Duke Chu. There was also a seal of Duke Chu. If it was refuted by me, wouldn't it be a refutation of Duke Chu's face? Then how can I be the prefect in the future?" Li Yan shook his head. To be honest, he was grateful to Li Guodong. Originally, Shanghai County was just an unknown small county town by the sea. He was a seventh-rank sesame official here. He wanted to be promoted to a third-rank official, but he didn't know that he would have to wait until the Year of the Monkey and Horse Month.

Because of Li Guodong's construction in Shanghai, Li Yan didn't even have to move his position and went straight forward. Shanghai changed from a county to a prefecture, and then became an important prefecture equivalent to Shuntian Prefecture and Yingtian Prefecture. Moreover, in the Shanghai Prefecture Prefecture, the local fiscal revenue has great flexibility, and the proportion of local income required to be paid is not high. Most of the money in income can be left in the prefecture office to develop local construction.

Moreover, Shanghai is now so rich. Customs duties, commercial taxes, industrial taxes, cultural taxes, entertainment industry taxes and real estate taxes. The taxes in various industries together account for almost one-tenth of the entire Ming Dynasty’s income. Officials at all levels of the Shanghai Prefecture Office can get high maintenance funds every year.

Shanghai was the earliest place where imperial power went to the countryside. Under the prefect's yamen, in addition to county magistrates at all levels, there were also multiple magistrates. Each magistrate had a fourth-rank official position, equivalent to a prefect in other places. Under the prefect, there were town officials equivalent to a magistrate in other places. Below, there were a ninth-rank official in each village, and there were some small officials who were not ranked in the yamen at all levels. The original yamen officials now became officials of the court, but some officials were not ranked in the rank. They could get the opportunity to be promoted through the assessment of their grades.

Even though there are many officials, because Shanghai has extremely high income, the salaries and wealth of officials are high.

In addition, Shanghai was also the first place to adopt a new school system. The official selection system was no longer selected according to the original imperial examination system. Instead, after graduation, the Shanghai Prefectural Office was admitted through the examination. The content of the examination was mainly based on the investigation of things and actual management. In this way, those who recite eight-legged essays will be completely useless when they arrive in Shanghai. It is precisely because of this that the officials here are very efficient in their work, and of course their salaries are also high.

As for the issue of officials who embezzle and accept bribes and fill their pockets, who would dare to do that? If an official here is an official, if something goes wrong and is caught by the Jinyiwei, then the laws of the Taizu period are adopted. Although the cruel laws such as skinning and grass are abolished, the heads of those criminals are hung on the flagpole at the door of the Jinyiwei shocked some of the guys who are ready to move.

Because Shanghai has a good economy, it is impossible for Li Yan to oppose Li Guodong, both morally and emotionally.

Li Yan thought for a while and said, "Yuan Liang, the stone road is outdated. The carriage is bumpy and bumpy. It is better to push the stone road off and replace it with the cement road. Since you want to change the cement road, it is better to take this opportunity to cut off the stone road and replace it with the cement road."

"How much money does this cost?" Yang Wencong said with distress.

"Silver is not a problem. As long as we report it, the Silijian and the royal family approve it, the silver we pay this year will be much less, which means that the court will pay the silver." Li Yan said.

The construction of a carriage line submitted by the Shanghai Prefecture quickly passed the approval of the Sili Supervisor and the Empress Dowager of the State, and the cabinet quickly approved the Red Army. Anyway, in the current cabinet, Shi Kefa, the old and stubborn cabinet chief minister, was basically outlawed, and the two secondary cabinet assistants were both Li Guodong's people. Needless to say, Sili Supervisor and the State, Wang Chengen of the State Secretary, was grateful to Li Guodong for his two life-saving kindness; Zhang Yan, the Empress Dowager of the State Secretary, was also the rumored girlfriend of Li Guodong. So everything went very smoothly.

Of course, the Qi brothers have to share some of the money for demolishing and building roads.

The Qi brothers naturally agreed, because they wanted to set up a car dealer specializing in rail carriages, and the money was also a project they had to invest, and the government could pay more than half of the money to build roads, which was already a huge discount.

A large number of recruited workers pried open the ground of bluestone slabs on the most prosperous section of Shanghai, then laid cement slabs made of cement underground, placed rails on the cement slabs, and finally filled the cement concrete. Only grooves were left on the two rails, so that the cement roads and the rail carriage lines were laid.

The reason why the rails are used directly instead of laying iron plates on wooden tracks is because the wooden tracks are prone to rot when buried underground, and it is difficult to repair when rotten. Therefore, the Qi brothers directly built the rails according to Li Guodong's suggestion.

The first rail carriage was produced. The carriage was very heavy, weighing 10,000 kilograms, with four iron wheels, and the huge rail carriage was placed on the rails.

The day of the test drive was coming, and Li Guodong came from Nanjing in person to observe the experiment of the rail carriage. Even Princess Kunxing wanted to see such new things and followed Li Guodong from Nanjing, but she did not reveal her identity as a princess, so she disguised herself as a man, disguised herself as a servant, and followed Li Guodong.

"Go and push it, and see if it can be pushed." Li Guodong shouted.

Qi Lisun asked in surprise: "Can a car be pushed by one person?"

Princess Kunxing also quietly pulled Li Guodong's necklace: "Duke Chu, can you do it alone?"

Li Guodong smiled and said, "It's okay, just do what I said."

A strong worker volunteered to walk behind the carriage and push it hard. When it started, it was very difficult to push, but when the car started to move, he found that the giant was very easy to push!

"It's really strange. Such a heavy car can actually push it by one person?" The Qi brothers were all very surprised.

The clever Princess Kunxing quietly said in Li Guodong's ear: "Duke Chu, the wheels and rails are both iron. Maybe it's because of this, it's very labor-saving to push them?"

During this period, Princess Kunxing has learned a lot of knowledge about investigating things with Li Guodong, and gradually she became obsessed with investigating things. In fact, the seeds of investigating things were planted when Li Guodong gave her gifts. Later, she went to the Tawau City and saw those amazing giant cannons. She was very interested in the magical investigating things. A while ago, since Chongzhen's death, Princess Kunxing has been in the palace for some scientific experiments every day, which is quite effective.

"That's the reason." Li Guodong nodded.

Then, people hung two Mongolian horses on the carriage and began to pull the carriage for trial operation. Li Guodong took the princess and personally boarded the carriage under the protection of a group of Jinyiwei.
Chapter completed!