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Text Chapter 514 Grand Canal

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    Luoyang, the eastern capital, is extremely hot in July, and people don¡¯t want to go out when it¡¯s hot.  ¨RBut on the Luoshui River that passes through the city, there are still countless ships. At the docks and city gates along both sides of the river inside and outside the city, countless ships and convoys are still going in and out.  Since the imperial court designated Luoyang as the eastern capital, this city immediately became the center of the entire Guandong region. The center of the world, which had a large population and prosperous industry and commerce, immediately became more and more lively.  Luoyang banks, newspapers, trading houses, post offices, garrison camps, and new shops sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.  In addition to the Han people on the streets, there are countless barbarians and Tibetan people of various styles, colors and languages.  Since the imperial court established Luoyang as its capital, military and civilian officials, their families, and the accompanying businessmen have added at least 200,000 people to the entire city of Luoyang.  The population of the entire Luoyang City quickly climbed to 500,000.  With such a large population, whether it is the luxuries needed by the court, officials, and military generals, or the daily necessities of ordinary officers and people, the needs of the entire city of Luoyang are astonishing.  And all of this depends on the rapid stability of the Central Plains region, as well as the already developed water and land transportation industry in the Central Plains region and the large number of people engaged in this industry.  Nowadays, the implementation of a large number of four-wheeled carriages, as well as carriage tracks at docks and other places, and pulley cranes at docks, etc., have greatly enhanced freight capacity.  The Ministry of Industry has even proposed to the court to carry out comprehensive dredging and expansion of the Bianshui River that originally connected the Yellow River and the Huaihe River, and the channel that connected the Huaihe River and the Yangtze River, so that there will be a direct and wide channel from Luoyang to Yangzhou.  canal.  Greatly improve the connectivity between the imperial capital and the Huainan and Jiangnan regions.  The construction of canals has a long history.  The Xu River was excavated as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, and it has been more than 1,100 years by now.  After Qin unified the world.  In order to connect shipping between the Xiangjiang River and the Lijiang River, the Ling Canal was also excavated.  During the Spring and Autumn Period, Fu Chai, King of Wu, built the city of Han and dug a ditch to connect the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers. Hancheng was the city of Yangzhou. This Hangou has lasted for thousands of years and is still the most important waterway between the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers.  When this dynasty was founded, its capital was Guanzhong Chang'an. Guanzhong Chang'an had a large population and relied on Guandong for a lot of grain.  Walk along the Yellow River more often, but many waterways in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River are dangerous and there are many boat accidents.  Therefore, in the fourth year of Kaihuang's reign, Emperor Wen ordered Yu Wenkai to lead the hydraulic engineering team to open a new canal, diverting the Wei River from the northwest of Daxing City in Guanzhong, slightly following the old route of the Han Dynasty canal to the east, and finally entering the Yellow River at Tongguan. It was more than 300 miles long and was named Guangtong.  canal.  Since then, water transportation has been profitable.  Guanzhong relies on it, so it is also called Fumin Canal.  Then in the seventh year of Emperor Kaihuang's reign, in order to raise troops to defeat Chen and unify China.  Especially from Huai'an to Yangzhou, the Yangdu Mountain was opened. Later, a straight line was adopted without detouring around Sheyang Lake.  You can say.  Insightful people from both the government and the public in this era have long recognized the importance of the canal.  Canals are more convenient and faster than land transportation.  Also consumes less, a canal.  The expressways of this era not only have an important impact on improving the economy, but are also of great help to politics and even the military.  In principle, Yi Feng supports the plan proposed by the Ministry of Industry.  Although when later generations mention the Grand Canal of the Sui Dynasty, they will think of hundreds of thousands of dragon boats, going down to the south of the Yangtze River to see Qionghua, the emperor, the country, and so on.  However, in fact, the canal does all harm and no benefit, and is even a project that will benefit the future. It is even more practical than the Great Wall.  Later generations' bad impressions of the canal were mainly due to the fact that when the Sui Dynasty excavated the canal, the project was too large and the construction period was too tight, which made the people's labor very hard. At the same time, the short life of the Sui Dynasty also caused the country's collapse in later generations.  Count it to the head of the canal.  In fact, several sections of canals had been dug before Yang Guang during the Yang Jian era, and they were all quite smooth and there were no problems.  The two sections of the canal opened by Emperor Wen have been in operation for more than ten years. They were praised by the people and contributed greatly to the imperial water transportation.  The reason why Yifeng was cautious and did not give immediate approval was because he learned from the troubles caused by Yang Guang's canal digging later.  Digging a canal is good, but a detailed project plan must be made in advance, and even the budget of the project, logistics supply, recruitment of laborers, etc. must be planned. It is said that there is no war without preparation.  To fight a war, you must first make complete preparations based on the actual situation, and then you must choose the right generals and have a good executive leadership team.  The same is true for projects. If the central government just proposes a project and no preparations are done, and then immediately hands it over to an unprofessional person to lead the operation, then it will be strange that this thing will not cause trouble.  After Yi Feng thought carefully, he issued a prince order to allow hundreds of officials, officials from various places and even knowledgeable people to openly discuss the canal project, make suggestions for the project, and provide useful opinions.  And a reward is offered for this purpose. Anyone who puts forward useful opinions can get a reward, at least a reward of 10,000 yuan, and even a particularly good one can be awarded a medal.  In addition, Yi Feng asked the Propaganda Department to go all out and start endorsing the canal project, so that everyone in the world could fully understand what the canal is, what its role is, and why.Why should we dig canals? What benefits would digging canals have to the people?  In addition, even before the project was officially approved, Yifeng had already begun to publicly write an article and published it in the Royal Weekly. One of the key items was that the imperial court would borrow 10 million yuan from the Northern Bank.  Special project funds for canal projects.  When digging the canal, the imperial court no longer forced the people to drive it for free, but adopted a completely new method.  The imperial court recruited canal-digging laborers from all over the country. All civilians who were recruited as workers were paid, with a minimum of fifty cents per day. Those with various skills could also receive higher wages.  At the same time, the project owner also covered the workers¡¯ travel expenses, as well as meals on the construction site, tents, etc., including food and accommodation, and even clothing, shoes, and socks for working.  At the same time, the Ministry of Industry was specially asked to set up an engineering college to begin temporary training of various engineering and technical personnel for the canal project in advance. Even the Imperial College in Luoyang also opened a new class and specially recruited a group of experienced workers from various places.  Officials, let them learn how to manage projects and supervise projects In short, after the imperial court's recapture of Huainan, the surrender of Lingnan, and the coming of the Seven Tibetans to the DPRK, the most talked about thing in the Eastern Capital is now  Just dig the canal.  To many people, the Prince's canal plan was really novel, especially the fact that he paid to recruit labor.  Many people are not surprised about the 10 million loan from Northern Bank. After all, Northern Bank is the prince's private property. As it is now, the prince is just taking out the money in his pocket for state use.  Although it is said that money from the national treasury is usually used to put it into the royal treasury. It is really rare to use personal money for national use, but it is also in line with the style of the prince who is now praised by everyone. I heard that the imperial court  The army is basically supported by the prince's personal money.  Many people also praised this project and asked about the latest news from time to time. After all, such a big project may require hundreds of thousands of workers if the project is tight. Every man in the Sui Dynasty in the world,  Everyone has twenty days of free labor for the country every year.  And if the project is large, they may even have to serve overtime, and the court will deduct some of their rent for the following year.  Twenty days a year doesn't sound like a long time, but it depends on the project.  If it is a national-scale large-scale project, sometimes it often crosses states and counties. Just to get to the project, you may have to travel thousands of miles a month, work for 20 days, and travel back and forth for two months. You also have to bring your own food rations and bedding.  Moving away from home is definitely a very heavy labor task.  But now, the prince no longer forces them to conscript them, but only charges one hundred pence from each person to be exempted from the labor service.  According to the original standard of the imperial court, two feet of silk were calculated per day. For twenty days of service, one piece of silk would be worth thousands of coins.  Now, the prince only charges them a hundred coins and is exempted from military service.  At the same time, if you are not far away, you can also sign up to work. Even a man who knows nothing will get food, accommodation and travel expenses for a day, and he can still get fifty cents a day at the construction site.  Many people have secretly planned to sign up as soon as the government officially recruits workers.  If you can work hard for a year, you can get a salary of 18,000 yuan. If you save all this money, you can buy two cows, one big and one small, or even build a new house for your son.  It's a marriage.  What the businessmen noticed was the prince's brief revelation about canal charges. After the canal is dug, some canal checkpoints will be set up on the canal to collect fees for ships passing through the canal.  However, no further details have been revealed about how many toll checkpoints there will be on the canal, how they will be charged, and how much tolls will be.  Some businessmen were worried about this, but some businessmen who were worried immediately smiled and told them that their worries were unfounded.  Now in the world, with the rise of the prince, Huaihuang businessmen have traveled all over the country and become the most famous group of businessmen in the world.  They started their business with the prince, and now they are all rich. With the prince and the Northern Bank as their two major backers, these businessmen can be said to have no disadvantages.  They fully support the excavation of the Jianghuai Canal.  As for the canal charges that some businessmen are worried about, they are even more dismissive.  The dynasties have always suppressed merchants, but the prince is definitely an anomaly.  During the time of Huaihuang, it was the prince's full support and personal guidance that led to the rise of Huaihuang merchants.  The prince also built roads and set tolls when he was pregnant, but the tolls were not high.  That little bit of money is totally worthless, and after the prince built the road and set up card tolls, he also sent people to patrol the road to prevent theft and bandit protection, and also sent special personnel to maintain the road at all times, which brought great convenience to the merchants.  Although there are waterways leading to the Yangtze River and Huaihe River, there are many boats and the river is narrow, so it is often easy to get stuck on the road. If you pay a little money, you can have a smooth river to go on. Which businessman would care about this toll.  (To be continued, please search Piaotian Literature, the novel will be better and updated faster!
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