In fact, in addition to school shops, there are also school canteens. However, when Marin opened a school, in order to ensure that the children had no worries, the canteen did not charge money. In addition, the Beihai country had extremely rich grain production, and Marin had too much food in his hands, so it didn't matter to make money in the canteen. Therefore, Marin had to give up the school canteen, a very profitable project.

As for the school shops that have competition outside the store, Marin never worried. Why? Because most of the snacks are not available at the moment, they are still in Marin's mind. Even if there are, many of them are produced in the workshops under Marin's name.

At that time, even if the shop is open, even if there are shops outside the school, you have to purchase goods from the snack workshop under Marin's name, which is inevitable. Moreover, Marin can also use administrative power to keep the school closed during the day and prevent children from leaving the school gate during class. As for morning and evening, there is nothing to do about it. But at least, no matter who the shop has to purchase goods from the workshop under his name.

However, after recently inspecting some rural craftsmen's schools, Marin found that it seems that the children's lunch food varieties are too single. Mainly, there is a very shortage of vegetables.

At present, in Beihai National School, in addition to the rich dishes in the canteens in the regular schools that the children of nobles attend, the school canteens of rural craftsmen generally only provide black bread and hot water. Only in spring and summer can a small amount of vegetables be provided. Because at that time, vegetables were the cheapest and the amount was sufficient. Only during the holidays would some salted fish and other food be served. Therefore, the children of rural craftsmen schools usually had black bread and hot water for lunch.

Although pure black bread without soil, wood chips and stones have become more advanced in this era, Marin knew that children in the growth period have a great demand for nutrition. In addition, various vegetables are indispensable. Otherwise, unbalanced nutrition will affect development.

Marin cannot provide too much for meat, at most some salted fish. After all, the cost of providing meat for free is too high for school cafeteria. The cost of salted fish is relatively low because there are many fishing boats under Marin's rule. Especially the Newfoundland fishery near Newfoundland Island, there is no competition, so you can catch as much as you want. The only troublesome thing is probably the transportation problem. After all, the cost of transporting the salted fish produced in Newfoundland fishery back to the local area and transporting it to various places by land is high.

The cost of sea transportation is OK, but the cost of land transportation is so high. Those who pull the carts have to eat a lot of food every time they leave the cart, which is very expensive. Therefore, when the salted fish, which is obviously very low, will not be lower when entering the inland areas, including the land transportation costs. Unless it can improve transportation, the level of cement roads in various places will be built. In this way, the carts will run easily and faster.

According to statistics, ordinary carriages can only run forty or fifty kilometers a day when driving goods on dirt roads. This is because European horses are strong and pulling cars are even more powerful. If they are short oriental horse breeds, according to the statement in "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic", "empty cars travel 70 miles a day, and heavy cars travel 50 miles a day", that is, 35 kilometers and 25 kilometers. Of course, what is mentioned here is a single horse pulling car. If it is a multi-horse pulling car, the speed is different. But the feeding cost of multiple horses is also very high.

According to records, in the 17th century, a total of more than 100 kilometers of carriages were traveling from Paris, France to Rouen, and the average carriage could only walk more than 30 kilometers per day. This is a relatively bad road surface. If the road surface is better, such as the current situation in Beihai Country, on ordinary flat roads outside the cement road, single carriages transporting cargo can also run forty or fifty kilometers a day.

But if it is replaced with cement roads, it will be very different...

According to the test, if it is a very flat cement road, the carriage is very easy to run, and it can run about 200 kilometers a day. Even if it is not a cement road, it is just a flat stone road like the Roman Avenue. According to records, in 1786, the carriage of the Duke of Croix in France ran 280 kilometers from Calais to Paris, from 5:30 in the morning to 8:00 in the evening. The carriage ran 280 kilometers at an average speed of 20 kilometers per hour...

Of course, the Duke's carriage is not a single horse, at least three or four horses. An ordinary single horse carriage, one horse pulls a carriage, requires a lot more rest time. Therefore, only on extremely flat concrete roads can you run at a speed of 200 kilometers per day. If it is a Roman Avenue or a stone road, it would be scary to run 150 kilometers per day. However, this is much better than running forty or fifty kilometers a day at present. You should know that in later generations, forty or fifty kilometers is just a car ride less than an hour.

Therefore, to reduce transportation costs, roads must be built!

There is no need for top-level cement roads, even cement roads of the same grade as stone slab roads and Roman Avenue are enough. Nowadays, carriages can only walk less than 50 kilometers a day by carriages. If they are replaced with cement roads, it is no problem to walk 120 kilometers a day, which is more than twice as much. If you use cage ball bearing technology on a carriage, the resistance is even smaller, and it is no problem to run 150 kilometers a day.

Moreover, the load weight of carriages nowadays is low, so they usually only carry more than one ton of goods. Although the cement boards are thin and cannot withstand the crushing of trucks in later generations, a carriage with a load capacity of only one ton will definitely not crush the cement board road surface. Besides, even if a few cement boards are crushed, they can be replaced simply and are more convenient.

Before, Malin only decided to build cement board roads among dozens of cities in Beihai Country to facilitate transportation, and only planned to recruit farmers to build roads during the slack farm. However, farmers only had time during the slack farm, and when the slack farm season comes, road construction will be suspended.

Therefore, Malin never thought about building township-level roads, because he did not have enough manpower.

But now, because we plan to introduce Italian migrant workers on a large scale, Beihai Kingdom can build roads all year round. Not to mention the roads between cities and townships, there are also conditions for the construction of township roads.

Of course, it is better to first build the cement board roads between cities. All cities are the core of each region. First, connecting each city with roads is equivalent to building the aorta. Then, consider building roads to towns under the cities of various cities.

In fact, if the main roads between dozens of cities in China are built, the transportation costs can be greatly reduced. Why is this? Because these dozens of cities can be used as "wholesale centers" in their areas. As for the roads leading to townships in various places, there are still solid roads and gravel roads. Moreover, generally the distance between the townships below is not more than 50 kilometers from the main cities in the area. Even if the carriage cannot take the flat cement board road, it can only run 50 kilometers a day, which is enough to transport goods to various townships under the city.

For example, the transportation cost of salted fish will immediately drop, making it affordable for ordinary people. However, the transportation of vegetables will be a little troublesome.

Because, unlike salted fish, salted fish are transported from overseas, first staying in various cities, and then scattered to surrounding towns. Salted fish are resistant to preservation, not afraid of long time, nor do they care about shipping to towns for a long time. Similarly, those snacks wrapped in oil paper bags are also very resistant to preservation, and they also spread from cities to towns.

Vegetables are the other way around. Vegetables are mainly produced in rural areas and are then transported to cities in dispersed areas. The more convenient the roads, the more and more vegetables are transported to cities. Moreover, the price will be greatly reduced.

Therefore, in order for the people of Beihai and children in the school to eat sufficient and cheap vegetables, Malin not only needs to encourage local estates to open vegetable planting areas. It also needs to build township-level cement board roads to facilitate farmers to transport vegetables to cities.

As for the policy of opening roads in every village in China in later generations, Malin dared not play. Why? This is too consuming materials and manpower. The Chinese in later generations dared to do this because it was based on the fact that China had a lot of construction machinery in the 21st century. For example, digging a river, directly using a large number of excavators, no manpower is needed. Road construction is the same, machinery is the main focus, and the efficiency is also very high.

Now Malin does not have those construction machinery, and it is already very expensive to build a township-level cement board road. Only Malin has a lot of money and grain, so there is the capital to play like this. If a European monarch of his contemporary era could not even afford to build township roads.

As for the problem that it is difficult to transport vegetables in the village to the highway, Malin also has a solution - directly build the vegetable base next to the town or on the roadside. This way, it will not prevent the rapid transport of fresh vegetables to the city through town-level highways.
Chapter completed!