"The Ministry of Industry has approved the plan to build the Ningwu Railway, but for privately operated railway sections, there is only 30 years of licensed operation time. Thirty years later, the government has the right to take the railway to the state. You probably need to carefully confirm whether it can recover costs and obtain certain profits within thirty years."

Yu Sixun, a civil affairs officer from Jianghuai Province, found Wang Changyuan, the leader of Wuhu merchants, and explained to him the feedback from the Ministry of Industry, which is in charge of railway construction.

The two provinces of Jianghuai, which are most active in private capital, are the most enthusiastic about new things like railways. The Ministry of Industry naturally agrees with their request to build railways. As long as they invest the railway funds, the province will not go bankrupt.

"Thirty years of franchise should be enough to make a profit. Thirty years later, we don't know if it's still in personnel or not. If we fail to recover costs and make a profit in thirty years, then we will not consider investing in this section of railway." Wang Changyuan said.

The merchants themselves have a set of books in their minds, so they must have weighed the pros and cons.

"But the construction of railways requires a large number of skilled railway engineers and railway workers, and there has been some change in this request..."

"What happened? It's not that the government cannot provide us with railway engineers and workers, right? We can't afford to pay?" Wang Changyuan said in surprise.

The railway talents are monopolized by the government. Without the government providing talents in this area, they will not be able to build railways at all.

"It's not a matter of money, but in addition to approving the plan to build the Ningwu Railway, the government also approved the Suzhou-Hangzhou Railway, as well as the Guangzhou City to Foshan Town, and the Macau Island Railway in Guangdong Province. In other words, there are three railways south of the Yangtze River that need to be started at the same time. Engineers and workers who built the Nanjing-Suzhou Railway need to be assigned to three construction sites. They simply cannot build three railways at the same time."

"Then what should we do with our Ningwu Railway? We applied to build the Ningwu Railway in the name of a private person. One of the important prerequisites is that the government must provide us with enough railway talents to help us build the railway smoothly. And we basically only need to provide funds. We know nothing about railway construction. If there are no railway talents, we Wuhu merchants may not be able to invest funds into the Ningwu Railway."

"Shopkeeper Wang doesn't have to be anxious. The Ministry of Works made a special trip to dispatch some railway experts from the north to the south for this matter. I believe they will come here soon. They are responsible for the Ningwu Railway, and the person who originally built the Ningsu Railway would be responsible for the construction of the Suzhou-Hangzhou Railway. As for the railways in Guangdong, students from the School of Railway Engineering of the Jingshi University will go there."

Yu Sixun did not seem anxious, and the Ministry of Works has responded in detail.

The Ministry of Industry has approved the three railways that have applied for in the south of the Yangtze River. The Ningwu Railway was built by private funds from Wuhu, and the person transferred was Zhan Tianyou, who was supervising the construction of the grassland railway at this time.

After completing the construction of the railway section from Liaodong to Guihua City, Ningxia Wei and Xi'an City, Zhan Tianyou should have continued to build railways in the direction of Lanzhou Wei, Dunhuang and Urumqi to open up the old Silk Road.

However, under the witness of Da Yuer, the Western Regions Provinces and Tsarist Russia and Kazakh Khanate signed a fifty-year armistice treaty. There were also corps stationed in the local area, with sparsely populated areas, and the demand for railways was not urgent.

So Zhan Tianyou was transferred to Nanjing City to be responsible for the construction of the Ningwu Railway. Business is prosperous and places with concentrated populations often have high requirements for transportation. At the same time, the people are rich and willing to invest in the construction of the railway.

The Grassland Railway has already spent a lot of money from the government, but the Ningwu Railway does not need the government to pay a penny, so it is naturally willing to provide them with talents. Moreover, the wages of this group of railway engineers and railway workers such as Zhan Tianyou are temporarily distributed by the Wuhu Railway Company.

In addition to the Ningwu Railway, there are two railways, the Su-Hangzhou Railway and the Guangao Railway.

The Suzhou-Hangzhou Railway plans to extend the railway from Nanjing to Suzhou City to Songjiang Prefecture, Hangzhou City, and Ningbo Port, connecting the coastal and river lines of the Yangtze River Delta to form the most prosperous handicraft commercial center.

The Guangao Railway connects Guangzhou City, Foshan Town, and Macau Island several important towns at the Pearl River Estuary. After all, the Guangdong Province is close to the East Jiaozhi Province, the West Jiaozhi Province and the South Ocean Province, and is also an important place for carrying out ocean trade.

Among them, the Suzhou-Hangzhou Railway is the most complicated because it involves different jurisdictions. The Jianghuai Provincial Government is responsible for investing in the construction of the railway section from Suzhou City to Shanghai County, the Zhejiang Provincial Government is responsible for the railway section from Shanghai County to Jiaxing and Hangzhou, and the merchants from Hangzhou, Shaoxing and Ningbo jointly invested in the construction of the railway section from Hangzhou to Ningbo Port.

In other words, the Suzhou-Hangzhou Railway is actually divided into three sections, from Suzhou to Shanghai, from Shanghai to Hangzhou, and from Hangzhou to Ningbo.

This area is also the most prosperous area for business.

"Does railway engineers and railway workers from the north pass the skills?" Wang Changyuan finally confirmed.

"They have been building railways on the prairie for several years. They have to face various complex situations such as grasslands, rivers, mountains, loess plateaus, swamps, and permafrost. The railways built have been thousands of miles long. Do you think their technology will fail?" Yu Siqing asked back.

"Hiss, a railway of thousands of miles? It's really incredible." Wang Changyuan never thought there was such a long railway in the north.

"From the capital, through Datong to Guihua City, then to Lanzhou Wei and Xi'an Prefecture, there may be more than 3,000 miles of railways." Yu Siqing said.

"Three thousand miles is more than ten times that of our Ningwu Railway!" Wang Changyuan said in surprise, "We Wuhu merchants have spent a lot of money to build more than 200 miles of railways. How exaggerated the grassland railway is!"

"These money is naturally paid by the government. Ordinary businessmen will not be able to invest heavily in building railways on the grasslands, and they will cross so many provinces." Yu Siqing said.

"What did the capital think about it? If we invest this money in our Yangtze River, Huaihe River and other places, wouldn't it be able to play a greater role?" Wang Changyuan, as a businessman, was quite puzzled by this matter.

According to the principle of maximizing profits by his businessmen, if a three-thousand-mile railway was built in densely populated areas such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Huguang, and Shandong, it would definitely bring higher economic benefits than most of them on grasslands and plateaus, right?

"Shopkeeper Wang, you don't understand. In addition to considering the benefits, the government will also consider many things. The north has been invaded by nomadic peoples throughout the dynasties. With the help of railway capital, the control of the Loess Plateau will be strengthened, and it will also be convenient for transporting troops from the east to the west. Once there is any war in the frontier, the main corps in the east can gather in Xi'an Prefecture in a very short time and head to Yumen Pass."
Chapter completed!