On the evening of April 2, 1655, Minghe Castle.●⌒,

Peng Zhicheng climbed a small slope panting and looked at the Southwest Railway that had been built to Qianjin Farm with satisfaction. From 1653 to March 1655, the railway from Guangrong Township to Qianjin Farm was finally opened to traffic. At this point, the total mileage of the Southwest Railway has exceeded 200 kilometers (there are also some of the mileages near Jingjiang Port in the western section), which is also an incredible railway in the east coast.

Below the hillside is a rural town with smoke rising gradually. It is getting darker this month. At this time, some impatient farmhouses have lit the lights and the whole family is sitting in the yard for dinner and chatting. The meal is nothing more than salted fish (a welfare after the train is opened), bacon, noodles and some fruits and vegetables, which are quite rich. This is the case in the inland rural areas. Although farmers' income is relatively low, there is no problem with eating and clothing. The expenditure on consumption of essential goods is much lower than that of the workers in the city.

Minghe Fort, an inland settlement with a population of more than 4,000 for two or three years, has now been officially renamed Minghe Town, because the Executive Committee has just instructed the Government Council to approve the establishment of Minghe County, which is under the jurisdiction of Minghe Town, Xikou Township, Qianjin Township (formerly Qianjin Farm, about 2,000 people), and Shengli Township (formerly Shengli Farm, about 1,500 people), has a total town and three townships. The total population is just over 1,000, and it is another inland county with a large land and sparse population and not much attention.

After Minghe County, the 19th county-level administrative unit in the country, has three counties running through the Southwest Railway, namely Taoyuan County, Minghe County and the westernmost section of Jingjiang County. Among the three counties, except for Jingjiang County, which is mainly papermaking and construction industry, and agriculture and animal husbandry as the supplement, the other two counties are typical agricultural counties, which are very poor. Last year, the fiscal revenue of county-level local governments was only 60,000 yuan and 70,000 yuan respectively. The medical treatment was not enough, and education was even a huge gap. Even the deep processing of agricultural and sideline products was a bit insufficient. In short, it was impossible to do anything. It was difficult for everyone to meet other needs except for being able to eat enough.

Since the economic activity of these agricultural counties is very low, it is difficult to say the profit prospects of the Southwest Railway, which is under construction, have undoubtedly hit the confidence of a considerable number of Genoa investors. Although the current profitability of this railway looks OK because of the transportation of massive buildings (the people from the East Coast build settlements in the inland), don't forget. The construction of settlements will always be completed one day. At that time, what is this railway used to transport? Is it just some commodities? Then, according to the sparse population in the local area, most of the transportation is not much, so the Southwest Railway may be trapped in the quagmire of losses.

Peng Zhicheng met with Alesandro, a group of the Doria family who came from Europe at Jingjiang Port a while ago. The Genoese said that they had invested in this railway for nearly three years and had spent more than 25 million bank liras one after another. It seems that they were too optimistic about the cost of this railway (at that time, they thought it would be possible to get it with 40 million liras). It seems that the railway spent more than 50 million liras was a foregone conclusion. Such a large investment was naturally to see the profits, so they were eager to know whether the East Coast people had a new profit model to ensure the future income of the Grassland Railway Company. You must know that the company's operating income last year was only 34,000 yuan, which was too low, so low that it was completely unacceptable.

Peng Zhicheng naturally had no good solution to the Genoese's questioning. He could only say that the East Coast Executive Committee will continue to immigrate here in the next two years and build more settlements to lay the foundation for the future development of the Grassland Railway Company. To be honest, this answer is equivalent to no answer, which disappointed Alesandro and others. However, Peng Zhicheng also reminded the Italians that according to the agreement, they can sell the railway at a price of 60 million bank lira to the East Coast government within one year after the completion of the railway. If the final cost of the railway is 50 million lira and the completion period is five years, the annual yield of the Genoese investment will still reach 4%, which is three to four times the yield of their domestic government bonds or annuity investment, and the return is already quite good.

Of course, people on the East Coast are not all unkind. Given the rising domestic prices in the East Coast (almost all materials and foods are purchased locally on the East Coast during the construction of the Southwest Railway), and the complexity of the railway construction (there are many railway bridges), the East Coast government will give the company an annual subsidy of about 100,000 yuan, as appropriate, in the form of building materials and railway equipment. In addition, on the day the railway is completed, the State Railway Administration of the East Coast Republic of China will also give Genoese a "project completion award" of 500,000 yuan at one time to encourage the distribution of relatively surplus grain, textiles and leather in the East Coast.

Including these miscellaneous subsidies and rewards, it is expected that the annual yield of the Genoese long-term investment will reach about 6%, which cannot be considered high, but it cannot be considered low! After all, how can they find such a good investment opportunity in Europe? If there is really a chance, they will not rush to invest in government bonds in China (even the annual inflation cannot be over).

After careful consideration, Alesandro barely recognized Peng Zhicheng's proposal. Now he realized that this railway may not be profitable in the short term. Fortunately, every cooperation with the East Coast people has a sell-off clause, which ensures that they have a decent rate of return. Therefore, after the railway is completed, it should be a relatively acceptable way for both parties to sell the entire railway to the East Coast.

However, in the future, you have to be more careful in your cooperation with the East Coast people. The construction of the Southwest Railway is an example. This is the insight obtained by Alesandro on this trip, because you cannot expect to rely on the East Coast people to "discover the conscience" to give you some subsidies and rewards (these things are still material and have to be digested, of course not too difficult) to improve your rate of return. Everything depends on yourself. When discussing cooperation with the East Coast people in the future, you must pay more attention to the return on your own investment. Only with this foundation can the cooperation between the two parties last for a long time.

"There are many reasons why the cost of building a southwestern railway soared, but the large number of workers cheated from Italy's escape was an important factor." Feeling the cool evening breeze on the hillside, Peng Zhicheng suddenly said: "Because the cost was much higher than expected, the foreman on the front line was instructed to extend the working hours of workers, increase their work intensity, reduce their living benefits, and deduct the wages they deserved. This behavior certainly reduced the cost of each worker (so far, the Genoese have transported more than 6,000 Italian laborers and 1,500 Congolese slaves to build the railway in three years), but it also greatly enhanced the degree of dissatisfaction among the workers. Therefore, after a smart man escaped at night, the people who fled one after another, and over time became a trend, which was speechless."

What Peng Zhicheng said is indeed the truth. Genoa capitalists had the urge to cut costs, and the way the workers resisted was to escape. There were more than a thousand of these fled workers so far. Public security bureaus at all levels in the East Coast only symbolically captured a few workers and returned them to Genoa foremen. The rest were allowed to fend for themselves. Later, according to statistics, these fleeing Italian workers basically changed their names and joined the construction work of the East Coast in the Wujiang area and the Northwest Reclamation Bureau in the East Coast with new identities. The East Coast officials turned a blind eye to this.

After the workers fled in large numbers, Genoa capitalists could only recruit new workers in Italy, Germany and other regions in the form of "caught fraud" and then sent them to the east coast to build the railway. The average amount of funds spent on each person was as high as 100 lira, which undoubtedly further increased their already high costs. In order to reduce costs, the front line could only further squeeze workers, which caused workers to escape. The vicious cycle tortures Genoa investors step by step, exhausting them. Finally, they had the idea of ​​quickly selling them to recover funds after the railway was completed. This was obviously in line with the wishes of the officials of the Executive Committee of the East Coast Republic of China.

"Haha, the Genoese people helped us build a railway for the first time, and they couldn't dispel their enthusiasm. When this group of people calculated that this railway would cost 40 million lira, I was laughing in my heart. It was impossible! Now that we are sitting on wax, it's not a bad thing to help them. After all, they are pointing at them to do business in Europe. If they spend some money on us, the effect will be several times more than that of our own." Yang Wanglin, who has been promoted to the director of the State Railway Administration, also climbed up the small slope and said gasping:

"It's really costly to get them so many Sicilians, Naples, and Genoeses to get them, but they can't stand the unpredictable things. People will yearn for a better life. These workers are willing to flee to work in our towns and not to suffer here. This is understandable. However, it is indeed necessary to give the Genoese some benefits. Otherwise, if they no longer come from the old continent, we will be stunned. At worst, they can treat it as spending money to buy people from them. If they can solve it with money, it's not a problem!"
Chapter completed!