The third thousand and thirty-seventh chapter looked stupid Earl Acton
Even if Li Xuan approves it now, it will probably take a year to start construction on these two Yangtze River bridges. Considering the difficulty of construction, it is estimated that it will take several years to see the two Yangtze River bridges open to traffic.
Before that, Li Xuan specifically instructed Jinling Ferry to do a good job in ferrying. The current ferry scale is still a bit small. With the current size of the empire, the dozens of ferries at Jinling Ferry every year are simply not enough, at least.
It takes one to two hundred trips to meet basic needs.
The two Yangtze River bridges have entered the preparatory stage, which also means that the Tang Empire has begun a series of super projects.
In March of the 42nd year, Li Xuan approved multiple water conservancy project construction projects in succession. These projects required Li Xuan's personal approval, but they were all large-scale water conservancy projects. However, compared with the Yellow River diversion project, these large-scale water conservancy projects were
The little witch has seen the big witch.
Taking the initiative to change the course of the Yellow River to alleviate flooding in the Huaihe River Basin and alleviate water shortages in Shandong and other areas was an idea that the Tang Empire had long ago, and it even started doing it very early.
The preliminary research and survey work has been carried out since the 15th year of Xuanping.
The preliminary preparation work includes surveying the new river channel, determining the new river channel plan, and conducting various demonstrations.
The preliminary preparations lasted for more than ten years and were initially completed in the 33rd year of Xuanping, thus determining the preliminary plan.
The follow-up is to start long mid-term preparations, formulate specific construction plans, and most importantly, relocate the people in the planned river area.
Now, forty-two years later, all the residents scheduled for the new river channel have been relocated, and the specific construction plan has been finalized.
At this time, the Yellow River diversion project has entered the actual construction stage.
The reason why we waited until now for construction is partly because the technology was not mature enough before, especially the machinery and equipment used for construction.
Now, with the emergence of the internal combustion engine, heavy construction equipment powered by the internal combustion engine has appeared on the construction site of the Yellow River diversion project. Only at this time did we have the technical foundation to carry out such a super project.
With Li Xuan's approval, the Yellow River diversion project has officially entered the final construction stage, but this construction stage will be very long.
Even if it is planned that the new river channel will use the channels of the ancient Yellow River and some existing rivers, the specific construction is actually just repairs, not directly digging a river channel.
But even so, the amount of work involved in the entire diversion project is still huge.
According to the Ministry of Industry, even with the most optimistic estimate, it would be good to complete the project within ten years.
However, once completed, combined with the water conservancy project in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River that is already under construction or planned to be built, the flooding problem in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River will be completely solved.
At the same time, without the influx of water from the Yellow River, the Huaihe River side can also effectively control the annual flooding in the Huaihe River Basin relying on the facilities of the current Huaihe River Flood Control Project.
In other words, once the Yellow River is successfully diverted, the current flooding problems in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and Huaihe River will be completely ended.
At the same time, the Yellow River water diverted from the north can also bring abundant water resources to the new river channel, which can be used to irrigate local farmland and meet domestic water needs, greatly alleviating the current water shortage situation in North China.
If the benefits were not so great, the Tang Empire would not have spent huge sums of money on diversion of the Yellow River for decades.
The Tang Empire, with its advanced scientific and technological capabilities, strong national power, and abundant fiscal revenue, continued to carry out these super projects, which made the Chinese people dumbfounded when they saw it!
Fortunately, some young people were born in the Tang Dynasty. When they were first born, they were already in an extremely powerful era, so they were accustomed to many things, and even felt that the world should be like this.
But many middle-aged and elderly people, especially those who have grown up in the pre-Ming era, often compare the present with the pre-Ming era decades ago. And then they are filled with emotion!
Even many of the founding heroes of Long's Empire in the early days, to be honest, they never thought that the country they conquered with the Holy Emperor would one day turn into what it is now.
Look at the huge steel wheels with tens of thousands of tons, the trains running across the fields day and night, the densely packed machinery and equipment in the huge factories, the skyscrapers that are hundreds of meters high at every turn, the horizontal
The Huangpu River Bridge spans the Huangpu River and is suspended by tens of thousands of steel cables.
Each of these is a miracle!
Thirty or forty years ago, who would have thought that it would be like this today.
No matter how imaginative people are, they could not have imagined that the Tang Empire would develop to this level thirty or forty years ago.
The people of the Tang Dynasty themselves were stunned, let alone outsiders.
Count Acton, the special envoy of the King of Spain and the new deputy minister of the Kingdom of Spain to the Tang Empire, served in the Spanish Consulate in Ceuta for three years and also visited the port of South Africa several times.
This time I came to the Tang Dynasty as a special envoy, and I saw many Tang Dynasty cities along the way. I even saw the Tang Dynasty trains from a distance in South Africa and Ceylon.
He prides himself on being well-informed. No matter how novel the Tang Dynasty is, he probably can only look at it a few times, but that's all.
However, all this completely changed after he came to Shanghai!
Just before seeing Shanghai, he boasted that he was well-informed, but after arriving in Shanghai, he suddenly found that he had become a frog in the well.
Ship?
The 5,000-ton ocean liner of the Tang Dynasty that he is currently riding is already very large. At the same time, he has seen the 10,000-ton liner of the Tang Dynasty heading to Europe many times. There are often more than 10,000-ton cargo ships docking in Ceuta.
.
But what kind of monster is this ship in front of us now?
Thousands of tons?
Are you kidding? He, Earl Acton, has read the books of the Tang Dynasty, but he knows about displacement, and he has seen the 10,000-ton freighters or passenger ships of the Tang Dynasty.
Compared with the 10,000-ton ships he had seen in the past and the Nova in front of him, it was simply a contrast between children and adults.
Moored at the dock, waiting for passengers to board the ship for the next voyage, the Nova, which weighed more than 30,000 tons, once again refreshed Earl Acton's understanding of the size of ships.
And further forward, what kind of monster is that across the entire river?
bridge?
Oh my god, there is such a big bridge, and the piers seem to reach into the sky.
Count Acton found the high-rise buildings on the shore even more incredible. It was not like he had never seen high-rise buildings before. Many churches in Europe were also quite tall, and the main building of the Tang Dynasty Hotel Europe in Ceuta was dozens of meters high.
Many European dignitaries have seen it with their own eyes.
But, aren’t there too many high-rise buildings in Shanghai, a little taller, and a little bigger?
At a glance, all of them were tall buildings over a hundred meters high. It was almost hard for Acton to imagine how many construction workers it would take to build such a huge building complex!
The dull expression on his face just happened to be seen by a Datang crew member nearby, who showed disdain: "Another one of you is stupid!"