"Your Majesty, please see, these are the six main rivers in our Qin Dynasty, all of which are from west to east into the sea. Although Your Majesty has continuously renovated and expanded the plank road connecting the world after unifying China, it is blocked by mountains and rivers, and transportation in many places is still difficult, especially the north-south freight and commercial travel are extremely inconvenient. The grain and salt of the south are to be transported to the northwest, and the fur cattle and sheep in the northwest are to be transported to the south. Transporting these rivers by land vehicles and horses is an insurmountable natural barrier. Even if there are docks, boats and ships, it is difficult..."

Chen Xu first pointed to the map and roughly introduced the traffic diagram of the river and the road.

This picture looks much clearer than the traffic map of Daqin in the past. Therefore, after Chen Xu briefly explained the emperor and understood it, he kept nodding and said: "Yes, water and land transportation have always been like this. These big rivers and rivers run across China. In the past, the princes fought, and these rivers were natural dangers. Now they have indeed become troubles that hinder the transportation and freight from north to south..."

"Is the big plan that the Zuo Prime Minister just mentioned is related to these big rivers?" The Ministry of Works Order Zai Hong stood up and walked to the front of the map for a closer look, and then asked.

"Yes, these big rivers have become a huge obstacle to the prosperity of our Qin Dynasty. Therefore, I have formulated a huge plan to rely on these six rivers to build large passenger and cargo terminal warehouses and trading centers at the intersection of the storm and rivers and the bustling counties along the river, build large roll-and-roll cargo ships, and even formulate standard containers, build gantry cranes, etc. to speed up the cross-river transportation of north-south freight, and then find excellent bays near the estuaries of these big rivers to build large seaport distribution centers such as harbor terminal warehouses. Because there are new large seaports that can quickly travel in the southeast coastal counties. Therefore, relying on these excellent seaports and distribution centers, the goods that go down the river can be easily transported to various seaports through seaports..."

"Your Majesty and your colleagues, Bashu is rich in grain, cloth and salt, but in the past they were transported to Hanzhong, Neishi and Nanyang counties, or through rivers and river boats to Nanjun and Jiujiang counties, but that's all. The north is almost impossible to eat Bashu's grain and salt. If you want to transport rice, tea, silk and porcelain, etc., the southern counties such as Nanjun, Changsha, Jiujiang, etc. to the Central Plains and the northwest counties, the cost is extremely high. You have to cross the river, Huai River, Dahe and other big and small rivers along the way. Even if you transport goods of low value to the west of the river, the price is already so high that merchants and the people are deterred, and the products in the northwest are the same..."

"If my plan is successful, not only Bashu and the southeastern counties, but also Lingnan areas can quickly transport goods to Panyu through the Pearl River system, and then transport them to Liaodong Bay within a month. When you arrive at Liaodong Bay, whether it is by riverboat or land carriage, you can quickly disperse goods to Liao Kingdom and Liaodong and other places. The same is true for the northwest cargo. Although the Liao Kingdom is still deserted now, the vast plains of the Liao River and Songhua River systems occupied by the Donghu are a huge ploughing and weaving plains, which are extremely suitable for growing millet, rice and grain. In time, Liaodong and Liao Kingdom will inevitably become the main grain-producing areas of our Great Qin. In this way, the northeast and northwest goods can be easily transported to the southeastern counties through sea ships. In addition, with the transportation of the Eastern Road and Chidao, these goods can very well spread to the Central Plains and other places..."

"Your Majesty and you all, please see that these places marked as black are the nodes and hubs of the important water and land transportation routes temporarily planned by me. As long as the wharf warehouse is built in these places, the water and land transportation and sea transportation are integrated into a whole. Under effective management and planning, the entire cargo transportation of our Daqin will be connected into one, forming a water, land and sea transportation network covering the whole country..."

Under Chen Xu's explanation, Emperor Qin Shi's eyes shone with his eyes, and he couldn't help but stand up and walk down the nine-story steps. Standing in front of the map, he kept wandering with Chen Xu's fingers and eyes. The same was true for civil and military officials, all of them were stunned by the hearing. Even a group of top nobles such as Feng Quji and Meng Yi couldn't help but squeeze into the front of the map to watch carefully, and while discussing in a low voice, he kept nodding in recognition of Chen Xu's huge planning map.

To be honest, from ancient times to the present, China has never had such a unified era, nor has it such a vast territory, nor has it such a peaceful and stable environment and such a vigorous economy at present. Therefore, there is no such a huge complex crisscrossing water, land, and sea transportation network that integrates the entire China.

After Qin Shihuang conquered the six kingdoms, he did use a lot of manpower and material resources to continuously recruit civil servants and slaves to build a post road connecting the whole country, and even planned to build a straight road leading to the northwest Great Wall.

The expansion and construction of the Chidao has indeed greatly improved the transportation between the old lands of the six countries, but it is now completely unable to keep up with the economic development of the Qin Dynasty. As for the plank roads, they are all built in steep mountains and deep valleys, most of which are hanging on steep cliffs. They can only be said to meet the most basic transportation and transportation, and have no effect on the transportation of bulk goods. If you want to transport the salt from Bashu and the grain from the Chengdu plain, you have to rely on river boats to walk through the river.

As for the straight road, the Xiongnu were completely abandoned, and before the Huns were completed, they were ruined by the strong. Meng Tian, ​​who built this road, lost his position as commander of the Northwest Army.

Therefore, even if the First Emperor was using countless people's and financial resources to continuously expand and renovate transportation, and constantly strive to integrate China into a whole, it has to be limited to the pattern of this era and the backward restrictions of transportation tools, and the implementation of the same track cannot completely solve the backward situation that hinders national integration and economic development.

As Chen Xu improved steel smelting and developed a flexible four-wheeled carriage with bearings and stronger steel axles, land transportation has been greatly improved. Later, sailing ships were built to greatly improve waterway ship transportation. Now with large sailing ships that dominate the sea, the time to integrate waterway and sea transportation is fully ripe.

"Okay, okay, the plan of Taishi is unprecedented. Once completed, our Qin Dynasty will benefit greatly from the southeast, northwest, and even the Lingnan and the princes..."

The First Emperor stroked his hands and praised him repeatedly. Not only did he listen carefully, but his eyes kept browsing back and forth on the entire map, with an extremely surprised light flashing in his eyes.

Chen Xu's huge transportation project almost turned his expectation to rule over China and integrate the six countries into reality.

This is a plan he dreamed of but never dared to think about.

Because this huge project has far exceeded his vision and ideological pattern.

This cannot be said that Emperor First Emperor was not talented and stubborn enough. It can only be said that Chen Xu had the memory advantage of more than two thousand years of civilization inheritance.

If you want to be rich, you must first build a road.

The great contribution of China's rapid rise in later generations was the huge road infrastructure, from ordinary roads to expressways, from ordinary railways to high-speed railways, China later generations hit huge national strength, and in just 30 years it built the world's largest highway network and the longest high-speed railway mileage. The convenience of transportation brought about the rapid development of the economy, which was a trend that could not be stopped.

With this vivid experience, Chen Xu just implemented it according to the script.

"Left Prime Minister, such a huge project, I don't know how much the country's limit is?" The head of the Finance Department asked tremblingly.

"Yes, such a huge plan, I'm afraid the money and food consumed are also an extremely huge number!"

“Of course…”

The civil and military officials who were watching were excited and began to discuss the most realistic issue, that is, money.

The current Qin Dynasty is completely different from the ones a few years ago. Starting from the new commercial law, with the promotion of Chen Xu, a large number of old laws have been abandoned or greatly revised, especially various government projects. Chen Xu strives to promote the court to solve the problem by commercial means, which is what he said to the emperor at the beginning: Everything in the world can be left to business!

The construction of Dongfang Road also allowed the court and the emperor to see the power of commerce, which could indeed greatly reduce the pressure on the court.

At present, the various projects of the Qin Dynasty, except for the emperor's construction of the underground palace and major water conservancy transportation projects, most of the projects were actually established by the court, and then the bidding was launched, and the merchants received orders. The court only relied on the project and paid for the supervision. Under the detailed and strict laws and regulations, both the court and the merchants followed the rules. After all, there was a left prime minister squatting on the top and paying the first emperor squatting on the left prime minister. The first emperor was now obeying the words of the left prime minister, so even after the accident, the kings, princes and ministers could not bear it. This also led to the current office atmosphere of the court, which basically would not happen. Using power for personal gain, embezzlement and bribery, fed personal pockets, passive slacking off work, and even colluding with officials and businessmen to build tofu and shoddy projects.

All the subjects in the world serve one person, that is, everyone is shrouded in the halo of the emperor.

The emperor wants to kill people depends on his mood. Whether or not he is judged or not does not matter. Once something goes wrong, the royal family will kill them, so all officials still restrain their desires very much.

The discussions in the court slowly calmed down.

Almost all officials including Feng Quji and Meng Yi turned to look at Chen Xu.

"Well, such a huge project will definitely cost a lot of money. Does the Grand Master have a rough budget?" Qin Shihuang also twisted his beard and pondered, and his face slowly calmed down.

"Yes, my calculation is about 4 billion..."

"Clang~"
Chapter completed!