After the feudal federations were broken down into three kingdoms, the Xia Kingdom immediately launched a railway project connecting the Ice and Snow Kingdom.

The first thing to start is geological exploration. If you want to build a railway, you must first plan a feasible line.

Although the details of the route have not been determined yet, the approximate direction has been decided.

Originally, before the establishment of Austria, the Xia State Zhengge Office roughly planned two routes.

One line starts from Jiehe City and extends northward until the Ice and Snow Kingdom; the other line starts from Ninghai City and goes north along the coastline until Weihai City in Ice and Snow Kingdom.

The first line is the shortest, but it needs to cross the central part of Austria, and its security is not controlled by Xia.

Although the second line is very long, it is more conducive to the control of the powerful navy Xia Kingdom because it is laid along the coastline.

Yang Song thought about this for a long time but could not make a decision immediately, because the two lines have their own advantages and disadvantages.

For example, if you want to open the road traffic line that connects to the Ice and Snow Kingdom as soon as possible, the short distance of the first route is what the Xia Kingdom needs, but safety is its fundamental disadvantage.

However, a piece of news from Ninghai City made Yang Song choose the second route.

On this day, Li Jing, the military cabinet, hurriedly found Yang Song, and he wanted to say something without even breathing. This was the first time Yang Song saw this on Li Jing.

"Pharmacist, please breathe well first." Yang Song said while asking the maid to give Li Jing a cup of tea.

Li Jing held his fists and returned the gift and took the hot tea that the maid held. After taking a sip, he then re-reported: "Your Majesty, there is a way to deal with the ship!"

"What?!" Yang Song was immediately shocked when he heard this, and suddenly stood up, walked quickly to Li Jing, and asked staring at him, "Is there a way? Tell me quickly, what's going on?"

"Report to Your Majesty." Li Jing replied with an excited expression: "Didn't there be a batch of wood from the Ice and Snow Kingdom two years ago? One of the wood was taken aback by the shipyard. Not long ago, this batch of wood was processed and a transport ship was built."

Yang Song also had the impression that this matter was the first time after the matter of the Ice and Snow Kingdom was resolved, there were a batch of cold wood, a specialty product of Northland, among the materials brought back from the Ice and Snow Kingdom in large quantities.

Yang Song also knew that the timber used to build ships could not be used just cut down wood. After the wood was cut, it had to be peeled, dried, decomposed, etc. before it could be used.

So now that Li Jing said that the wood transported from the Ice and Snow Kingdom, Yang Song immediately thought of the material problem of the ship was solved.

Sure enough, Li Jing's answer made Yang Song's guess affirm.

"Your Majesty, this transport ship made of cold wood transported from the Ice and Snow Kingdom has no sign of damage after traveling back and forth between the north and south. We can use this wood to build warships."

Yang Song also agreed with Li Jing's statement, but after he was happy, he thought of several questions that needed to be answered.

Yang Song returned to the desk and sat down, let Li Jing sit opposite him, and asked, "Pharmacist, can such wood be guaranteed?"

"Yes!" Li Jing nodded decisively about Yang Song's question and replied: "Your Majesty, I have asked, this kind of cold tree grows in the north, and it is not a rare tree."

"Yeah." Yang Song nodded and continued to ask: "What is the cost of shipping back? Are there any difficulties?"

"This kind of cold wood is very hard, and it is difficult for residents in the north to cut down? There is no problem with transportation." Li Jing replied this? His face had completely returned to normal.

When Li Jing heard Yang Song ask him what difficulties he had? He frowned and thought for a while. Finally, he replied: "It's just that this cold wood only grows in the cold areas. If the supply of the Ice and Snow Kingdom cut off, we will not be able to obtain this wood from other places."

"This is a problem." Yang Song nodded in a clear way. Is it a big problem with the problem of being controlled by others? Yang Song has a deep understanding of this.

Before, Austria was restricted by Xia State? This was because it had to sign a series of bad treaties with Xia State. Moreover, the same was true for the previous Ice and Snow Kingdom.

It would be bad if the Ice and Snow Kingdom used this to threaten Xia Kingdom? Although Xia Kingdom could face it resolutely with its powerful military power? But this is a problem after all.

"Is that true? I bought a large amount of this cold wood from the Ice and Snow Kingdom in a short period of time on the grounds of improving the trade between the two countries." After thinking for a while, Yang Song ordered: "Don't stop building railways on land at the same time, work together to strive to gain greater benefits for our Daxia."

"Your Majesty is wise." Li Jing clasped his fists to praise him? Although Yang Song said nothing about him, Li Jing or the military cabinet, the ship problems in Xia Kingdom in the short term were related to him? Now when he heard Yang Song say this, Li Jing felt confident.

After Li Jing left happily, Yang Song invited Xun Yu, Li Jie, Shen Kuo, Zhang Juzheng and other important personnel to have an interview.

Because the ship matter has been solved? Now Yang Song is looking for these people to make a little tweak on the Xia Kingdom's strategy.

Yang Song ordered Xun Yu to take charge of the overall situation of domestic development - this point has not changed, but some fine adjustments need to be informed.

Li Jie is the Minister of Works? There must be many aspects that need to be paid attention to when building ships and railways.

Yang Song's purpose of attracting Zhang Juzheng was not for other purposes, but for the sake of financial support.

Fortunately, I obtained a lot of wealth from the Ice and Snow Kingdom two years ago and continued to obtain it within the past two years. In addition, I did not directly send troops to the previous actions of the Federation of Princes, so I didn't spend much money.

This has led to a good change in Xia's finances in the past two years, and Zhang Juzheng has only been much more relaxed in the past two years.

Now Austria has also transferred a large amount of wealth to Xia in another way. It can be foreseeable that if Xia no longer activates wars in the future, Xia's finances will continue to be alleviated.

...

The purpose of Yang Song calling Shen Kuo was about steam-powered steel ships. Yang Song wanted to fundamentally solve the problem of sea ships. Anyway, it would be a matter of time before technology upgrades were carried out.

Judging from the reply given by Shen Kuo, the Xia Kingdom has not solved the problem of steam-powered marine use, but the hull of the steel warship has made great progress.

However, even if a warship is built with steel, it is useless to have no matching power. It is impossible to use sails to drive the bulky and huge steel warship, right? The speed is touching.

Yang Song got another good news from the development of the warship hull, that is, new progress has also been made in the development of new artillery.

It is precisely because Xia Guo’s technology on metal smelting made a breakthrough some time ago that Shen Kuo made the latest breakthrough in the development of the hull and artillery of the steel warship.

After the problem of steam power marine utilization is solved, and good ships are equipped with good guns, the maritime power of Xia Kingdom will be qualitatively improved again.

Not to mention that the current maritime power of Xia Kingdom is an invincible existence on this continent. If it is qualitatively improved on this basis, the scene is very worth looking forward to.
Chapter completed!