RPAGF #406 - To get rich, build roads first
#406 - To get rich, build roads first
However, these things must be done one at a time.
To achieve the same smooth finish as the FTC2000G in current machining processes, significant research and breakthroughs are still needed in machine tools.
Although high-end machine tools such as five-axis machining centers have emerged, many modern machine tools cannot be created overnight.
Currently, the machine tool technology in the Bright Sword world is roughly at the level of the 1970s, with a small portion reaching the 1980s.
Ren Zhong is primarily focused on acquiring early domestic machine tool models, buying data where available, and resorting to purchasing used machine tools for disassembly and measurement when data is unavailable.
Under the current conditions, the re-production of a new generation of industrial machine tools from old ones has accumulated a wealth of experience.
With dimensions, functional descriptions, and reference photos, coupled with breakthroughs in integrated circuits, iterative development of CNC machine tools is no longer a pipe dream.
Relying on increasingly mature integrated circuit design, the country is beginning to accumulate more and more circuit designs in the field of small-scale integrated circuits.
Of course, the vast majority are also transported by Ren Zhong from the main world.
Anyway, there is no concept of copyright between the two worlds.
Once transported to the Bright Sword world, each new integrated circuit becomes the intellectual property accumulation of Dongda University in the field of integrated circuits.
The development speed of integrated circuits, as if there were no bottlenecks, has made even the top electronic scientists in the Western technology centers, still in the transistor era, feel a sense of powerlessness!
It has even attracted a group of young Caucasians to study at Dongda University, preparing to learn the latest electronic technology here.
Although the living standards at Dongda University are still far behind those of the Rogue Eagle, especially in the consumption of electronic products such as televisions, tape recorders, and microwave ovens, as well as industrial products such as automobiles, the gap between the two is still enormous, differing by orders of magnitude.
However, if one were to carefully analyze the patent registrations of Dongda University, it would be clear that Dongda is developing far faster than the entire Western world in cutting-edge technological advancements.
Not to mention the Great Bear, which is still working hard on vacuum tubes.
They adhere to the fine tradition of 'strength through brute force' and have not given up on vacuum tube technology.
Efforts in transistors cannot be said to be nonexistent, but compared to the Rogue Eagle, the effort and results are much inferior.
The threat of a new world war has led the Great Bear to focus on the development of military industry, placing emphasis on the steel torrent.
In the past five years, the Great Bear and its allies have produced a total of 50,000 T-54/T-55 tanks!
In terms of aircraft, the total production of MiG-15 fighters exceeded 18,000, and the total production of MiG-17 fighters approached 11,000!
With such war preparations, the Great Bear and its allies have essentially invested most of their productivity growth into military aspects.
In contrast, the Rogue Eagle's total production of M48 tanks in the 1950s was 11,730 units, which is the total output for ten years, nearly an order of magnitude less than the Great Bear!
As for Dongda, the production volume of the Dragon Tank II series (including Dragon Tank 2A/2B/2C) in the past five years is less than 2,500 units.
Even so, Ren Zhong suggested selling off the early T34 tanks.
After gaining control of the skies, combined with the historical experience of the main world, Ren Zhong judged that the overall peace in the Bright Sword world would be more stable, because a true balance of power has now formed.
Although Dongda is not enough to participate in the world hegemony, its dominant position in the Asia-Pacific region is unshakeable, which has been fully demonstrated by the Peninsula War and the counterattack against India.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Dongda is an invincible existence, and no one can challenge it!
Therefore, for the development of the military, Ren Zhong suggested focusing on quality rather than quantity, and a large number of troops should first be transferred to organized engineering corps, specializing in the construction of roads, railways, airports, power stations, and other infrastructure.
From mining and metallurgy to infrastructure construction, the energy consumed in the middle is supplied by abundant hydropower and thermal power, forming a cheap internal cycle for the entire industrial chain.
In addition, with the opening of private capital to the construction of branch railways, domestic railways are increasing at a staggering rate of 5,000 kilometers per year.
The trunk lines (national highways) of highways increase by more than 10,000 kilometers per year, and the provincial, county, and township roads increase by more than 20,000 kilometers per year.
It is equivalent to the highways increasing at a rate of 30,000 kilometers per year.
After the completion of the two five-year plans, basically every county has access to highways, and most of the eastern regions of the country have access to highways to every township.
In 1955, the total mileage of highways exceeded 450,000 kilometers, which is 7 years ahead of the highway construction in the main world's historical timeline (460,000 kilometers of highways were built in 1962 in the main world).
Since the main national highways are built by the engineering corps, the plains are standard divided two-way lanes (i.e., four-lane trunk lines with a design speed of 80km/h, and a standard road surface width of 25.5 meters for first-class highways), while the southwestern mountainous areas and plateau sections are only two-way lanes (i.e., two-lane trunk lines with a design speed of 60km/h, and a standard road surface width of 7.5 meters to 12 meters for second-class highways).
Although the development of transportation has surpassed this era, in the initial stage of construction, many people criticized the waste of these constructions, with a large number of roads built without cars running on them.
However, the facts quickly proved them wrong.
First of all, passenger cars and trucks have been growing rapidly every year since the roads were opened.
The original inter-county transportation vehicle, which ran once a day, quickly became 4 or even 8 times a day.
According to the current trunk transportation model, transportation from Jiuyuan to the capital, Beijing, takes just over 10 hours to reach the destination.
From Jiuyuan to the holy land of the border area or Taiyuan, it takes about 8 hours to arrive.
Therefore, there is no need to worry about the consumption of the vigorous development of Jiuyuan's steel industry now.
The area within 10 hours of same-day delivery accounts for most of Dongda's northern development region.
Not to mention that the speed of railway trunk lines has generally increased to more than 80 kilometers per hour, and the speed of railway lines in some plain areas has increased to 120 kilometers per hour, which has greatly improved the condition of railway transportation.
Now, except for the plateau areas, all provincial capital cities in the country have railway access, and with the construction of airports in more than 300 cities, railways, highways, and aviation completely cover all cities above the prefecture level in the country.
It can be said that if Ren Zhong were to evaluate his contribution to the Bright Sword world, in addition to the technological aspects, what he is most proud of is the advanced development of transportation!
If compared with the transportation situation in the main world, the mileage of highways has not exceeded the 1980s, but the quality of the main lines has completely surpassed it.
The railway aspect is not comparable to the 1980s at all, and even exceeds the level of the early 2000s, with more than 70,000 kilometers of railways now.
Among them, high-speed railways with speeds reaching 120 kilometers per hour have more than 10,000 kilometers, and the speed of most sections of trunk lines such as the Beijing-Guangzhou Line, the Beijing-Shanghai Line, the Beijing-Harbin Line, and the Longhai Line has been increased to more than 100 kilometers per hour.
The improvement of transportation has brought about an explosive growth in the flow of people and goods, while also transforming inter-city collaboration into a lower-cost production chain.
It has enabled the collaboration of raw material production sites, primary processing of components, sub-system equipment, finished product assembly and debugging, and sales, all in different regions.
Don't underestimate this step. For Dongda, its vast territory and abundant resources are both an advantage and a disadvantage. Dongda's geographical distribution is much larger than that of the European Union. Our 9.6 million square kilometers are more than twice the 4 million square kilometers of the 27 countries of the European Union in the main world. In terms of land area, it's less than half.
Therefore, in Europe, domestic collaboration is quite convenient, as most countries are smaller than one of our provinces. If we were to borrow their development model, the transportation aspect alone would be difficult to overcome or too costly to be worthwhile.
However, Ren Zhong directly used the engineering corps to pave the way for construction, greatly reducing infrastructure costs. Only when there was no other way would we hire some temporary workers from the private sector to build roads and bridges.
As a result, the current construction cost is less than one-tenth of what it would be in later generations.
In terms of quality, there is no such thing as shoddy construction.
However, all this is not over yet. In order to completely improve the transportation situation in the plateau, the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, and the Xinjiang-Tibet Railway will be constructed simultaneously during the Third Five-Year Plan, preparing to open up the final restricted area for railway construction.
After all, the Sichuan-Tibet Highway, which is now well-constructed, is easily interrupted by complex geological disasters. Building three railways to the plateau will greatly reverse the transportation situation in this area, thereby completely solving the national defense problem in the plateau region.
In this alternate world of "亮剑 (Liang Jian)", even though the plateau's air transportation far exceeds the same historical time frame in the main world, air transportation is not a long-term solution. If this area is to develop and integrate into the overall development of the mainland, it is necessary to solve the transportation constraints on this place.
It's just that this challenge is extremely huge, and Ren Zhong doesn't know if he can successfully build these three railways.
After all, this problem has not been solved in the main world, and solving it 60 years ago is indeed a bit beyond the scope. However, Ren Zhong believes that there are no difficulties that we cannot overcome. These three railways are of great strategic significance. They will not only provide a major artery for the development of the plateau, but also serve as strategic transportation routes for national defense preparedness.
With these three railways, plus three highways and air routes with similar orientations, our transportation in the plateau will be almost unimpeded.
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For supporting and developing the land south of the Roof of the World, the strategic support will also be greatly enhanced with the railway.
Although the significance is extraordinary, the construction cost is huge, which is a very huge burden for Dongda at this time.
So, facing Ren Zhong, this heavyweight promoter, Staff Officer Ye, who is in charge of compiling the Third Five-Year Plan, came to the door.
"Old Brother Ren, your construction plan for these three railways is really embarrassing for me," Staff Officer Ye said with a wry smile. "According to the preliminary planning of the three lines, the Sichuan-Tibet Railway is 2,000 kilometers long, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is 1,800 kilometers long, and the Xinjiang-Tibet Railway is 2,700 kilometers long, totaling 6,500 kilometers. According to our current cost, each kilometer requires nearly 500,000 funds (PS: Assuming that the current exchange rate of Dongda to US dollars is about 3 yuan for 1 US dollar). Most of this money is spent on purchasing materials such as rails and engineering machinery. The construction workers are mainly from the engineering corps, and we only need to bear the cost of food, which can be said to have reduced the cost to the extreme.
However, even so, our budget is as high as 3.25 billion yuan, requiring 650 million yuan per year.
Although our fiscal revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan last year, there are also many places to spend money. This construction cost of 650 million yuan is too much of a burden on the finances."
Staff Officer Ye is right. Even if the labor costs of the engineering corps are not counted, and there are no demolition costs for the land, and the land can be replaced with land in other places when the railway is requisitioned, the materials such as rails, steel bars, and concrete still need to be purchased.
"If we don't build now, the cost of building in the future will be even greater, and it will be more difficult to build," Ren Zhong responded. He knew that the budget for the Sichuan-Tibet Railway in the main world is almost 200 million/km, and the early construction cost of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was 33 billion yuan, while the total length of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway in the main world is 1,956 kilometers, totaling about 16.87 million/km, which is more than ten times different from the Sichuan-Tibet Railway budget!
So, the later you build, the more money you spend.
Now, it only costs more than 3 billion to build three strategic railways, which is worth a thousand times over.
"Now that we have the construction experience of the Baoji-Chengdu Railway and the Chengdu-Kunming Railway, technically speaking, although the railway construction on the plateau is more difficult, it is not much different. As long as the railway line in the permafrost zone of the plateau is overcome, there will not be too many problems."
"As for the funding problem, I don't think it is necessary to bear all of it with fiscal funds. More and more young people are entering factories now, and factories with good benefits also pay more. These young people have accumulated a lot of savings in their hands; in addition, the scale of private capital is also very large now. We can specifically issue five phases of ten-year railway bonds for the construction of these three railways. In terms of scale, we will issue bonds according to 60% of the funding needs. In terms of bond interest, we will consider offering some preferential treatment, and an interest rate that is one point higher than the current deposit rate will be fine."
"In this way, we can solve the construction cost relatively quickly, and the burden on the finances will be reduced a lot. With a 40% fiscal fund matching, the estimated cost is about 270 million. Now our fiscal revenue can support this project without much difficulty, and then it will be paid in ten years, and the principal will be less than 400 million yuan per year. Such a price will bring three strategic railways, which will closely link the three places of Sichuan, Tibet, and Xinjiang. This is a kind of regional collaboration that is difficult to buy with money!"
Everyone is no stranger to the thing of issuing bonds. Bonds are more widely used in this world than in the main world.
Connecting with the characteristic market economy, in terms of finance, the current Dongda also has an operational stock trading market, and also implements membership cards for formally trading customers.
However, in order to regulate the market and reduce the chance of being scammed, it is illegal to form markets spontaneously by others except for trading in regular markets.
"Issuing bonds?" Staff Officer Ye fell into deep thought.
This answer was indeed something he had not considered, because bonds have to be repaid, and no one treats issuing bonds as income.
However, Ren Zhong was right. If he could postpone this construction fund by ten years, the fiscal revenue might exceed 200 billion or even 300 billion.
"Yes, we can borrow money to do a good job in construction first, and then use the money earned from public facilities such as railways and airports to repay the debt."
In order to raise funds for construction, Ren Zhong has also exhausted his efforts.
If this wave is effective, it will be equivalent to solving 60% of the cost, and most of the construction funds will be implemented.