Everyone had already realized that building a railway would be costly after hearing Luo Chong's words, but they had no idea of the exact price. Now that Lin Fei had thrown out one figure after another, they all declared that they couldn't accept it and were thoroughly shocked!
What kind of family had made them think of building such a tycoon's railway?
Weren't horse-drawn carriages good enough?
Why spend money building a railway like this?
Seriously, leaving aside the question of how long it would be, just one kilometer of rail—apart from the Han Tribe, could any other tribe on this entire continent smelt that much iron in five years? And that was without even mentioning the quality of the steel rails.
Everyone turned to Luo Chong, wanting him to confirm whether what Lin Fei had said was true.
Luo Chong took in their reactions before speaking.
"Lin Fei was right. If we're laying a freight railway, it really will require that much iron. But you don't need to be so shocked and think that the number is huge. You've only heard about the consumption without knowing our steel production capacity. Big Strength, come and tell them how much steel the Han Tribe can produce now."
"Sure. The Steel Mill in Xingang Commandery is currently renovating the original Star-shaped Blast Furnaces, but the renovations are progressing somewhat slowly, so for now, let's calculate based on the old furnaces.
Xingang Commandery has twenty Star-shaped Blast Furnaces. Normally, we only keep five furnaces running. While those five are operating, the rest are either being cleaned out or repaired, so our utilization rate is only one-quarter.
When each blast furnace is running, it smelts iron continuously for all twelve double-hours of the day. A blast furnace can't simply be stopped at will. Once