The Longcheng Automobile Factory rolled out two hundred vehicles in this production run.
One hundred were set aside for sale.
The other hundred were allocated to government offices and various enterprises under their purview.
Units at the district level and above received official vehicles — meaning district chiefs and deputy district chiefs at Grade 8 and Grade 9 now had cars to ride in.
This made certain people absolutely overjoyed.
Within Longcheng's jurisdiction there were currently five districts, and beyond the city proper lay Baihu City, also at the district level, along with Xinguang District and Taoyuan District.
After several years of development, the total population of Taoyuan Township had stabilized at over thirty thousand, so it was elevated to district-level status.
Baihu City and Guangxin District each had populations of roughly seventy or eighty thousand.
Certain other departments also qualified by rank — among them the Municipal Security Bureau and the Prison Administration General Bureau managed by Li Xuanji.
Then there were various industrial departments.
The bank, for instance.
And the Taoyuan Hotel, which was allocated two vehicles for ferrying wealthy and distinguished guests.
Naturally, this came at a cost.
Or, if a guest had booked the most expensive suite, a little fuel money was the least of their concerns.
A driving school had also opened, located in Longbei District, and it attracted no small number of students.
Upon graduation, each student received a certificate.
At the moment, that certificate carried enormous prestige.
Cars were so extraordinary that even knowing how to drive one elevated a person's standing.
A driver might be an ordinary person, but anyone who could afford to ride in a car — who among them was ordinary?
And if a driver could get on speaking terms with such people…
The Longcheng government had set a population target for the year: by year's end, Longcheng was to reach two hundred and fifty thousand residents, filling the current five districts to capacity.
Then, before year's end, construction of four to eight new districts would begin in the surrounding areas.
Longcheng's ultimate goal was one million people — roughly twenty-some districts in all — and the Master hoped to achieve this within five to ten years.
As for the broader regional population target, the outlying areas were to reach five hundred and fifty thousand, bringing the total including Longcheng to eight hundred thousand.
Every district was assigned not only a population growth quota, but also a quota for how many people it was to channel into Longcheng itself.
Longcheng. Longzhong District. The center of centers. A small patch of land there had broken ground.
The foundations were being laid for several large buildings with ambitious planned footprints.
Elevators had by now begun to be installed in increasing numbers, with speed and safety having reached an acceptable standard.
So several major projects had commenced simultaneously.
Nine towers were under construction in this area at the same time — the shortest of them exceeded twenty stories, and the tallest was planned to rise to twenty-eight floors!
If completed, it would be the tallest building in the world!
Of course, the current tallest building also belonged to Longcheng — a nine-story tower that housed the bank.
This small corner of the city was destined to be the absolute heart of the metropolis for decades to come. On any given day, tens of thousands of people would move through it.
It would be as if the entire population of a county town had been packed into a single city block.
Such a thing was beyond anything people had once dared to imagine!
…
The Railway Research Institute was a department established specifically for this purpose, and for many years to come it would devote itself entirely to the study of trains.
Many students from the mechanical engineering departments of the universities were busy at work there.
Now that petroleum was available, train manufacturing could begin in earnest, and rails could be laid.
Water transport was naturally the cheapest means of moving goods, but it was slow, and it could not reach everywhere.
The Central Plains possessed two great rivers, and the waterway network spread quite broadly.
Yet measured against the vast expanse of the land, the rivers could ultimately reach only a fraction of the territory.
Paved concrete roads were spreading further all the time, and large trucks had gradually entered production — but their efficiency and cost-effectiveness were still no match for trains.
So trains were an absolute necessity.
The General Staff had received some intelligence from abroad indicating that trains had already begun to appear in certain places, though powered by coal.
How could Longcheng afford to fall behind other places?
Manufacturing a locomotive posed no great difficulty for Longcheng. The true challenge lay in laying the rails.
Longcheng, Xinguang District, and the northern capital — arranged roughly in a triangle.
Three rail lines broke ground almost simultaneously. Naturally, all resources were prioritized for the Long-Guang line first, followed by the Long-Bei line, and then the Guang-Bei line.
The Long-Guang line could be routed to pass through the new capital of the southwestern court with only a slight detour.
The Long-Bei line, with a minor adjustment to its course, could incorporate Baihu City.
The Guang-Bei line, angled just slightly, could take in the Ming Emperor's secondary capital.
The Ming Emperor was inwardly unhappy about it, but powerless to resist. He could only gaze helplessly at the construction workers building away twenty li outside the city walls.
He calculated that once this line was complete, the wolf-soldiers could reach him in a matter of days.
Then despair set in.
What made it more desperate still was that he had no power to resist.