The arrival of Li An completely changed the historical trend of the Tang Dynasty, originally in this period, the Tang Dynasty should gradually move from strength to decline, but Li An successfully changed this situation through a series of efforts, especially the advancement of industrialization, so that the productivity of the Tang Dynasty has been greatly released, and the imperial court finances have been much more abundant.

With the gradual expansion of the railway network, the transportation conditions of various personnel and materials in Datang have been greatly improved, and the people's living standards have been greatly improved.

The garrisons in remote areas have been able to deliver supplies in a timely manner, and the cost of raising troops has been greatly reduced, and many delicious fruits from the south have become foods that ordinary people in the north can afford, and of course, the people in the south can also eat many seasonal crops in the north.

The exchange of goods in coastal areas and inland areas is more frequent, the logistics cost is greatly reduced and the logistics time continues to be shortened, so that the price of goods that were originally far away has been reduced by several times, or even more than ten times.

Many products that could only be sold nearby, at this time, can already be sold to the whole territory of Datang, the price of the merchants is set low, but the profit is not reduced at all, but earn more, the price was set at a high price, the sales volume can not go up, and at this time, with the great improvement of logistics, the transportation cost has been greatly reduced, and the pricing will naturally be reduced, so many ordinary people can also afford to buy goods.

In addition, the railway is the lifeblood of the Tang Dynasty, and the train is an important asset of the Tang Dynasty, if anyone dares to fight the idea of the railway and the train, it is a capital crime, so the money to buy the road can also save a lot, when taking the mountain road and the waterway before, you will often encounter Jiangyang thieves and thieves or something, either leave the money to buy the road, or all the property is robbed, in short, it is very difficult to transport a trip to the goods, it is simply a life of nine deaths, if you don't increase the price ten times, you are sorry for yourself.

However, as the businessmen gradually taste the sweetness from the railway transportation, they are more and more inseparable from the railway, but there are so many railway lines, back and forth are a line, and it is unrealistic to want to increase the volume of transportation without limit, only one car by one transport, when the volume of goods is particularly huge, it is inevitable that there will be a backlog of goods at the station can not be sent.

It doesn't matter if the ordinary goods are delayed for a few days, but if the shelf life is very short, then the situation is more serious, once the delay of a few days is likely to cause the rot and deterioration of these fruits, so that the merchant will lose very much.

However, if the imperial court completely prioritizes the transportation of fruits, if the amount of fruits is too large and lasts too long, it will seriously affect the transportation of the rest of the goods, and the loss is also not small.

For this reason, the imperial court is also very difficult, and some businessmen are even more anxious, in this case, many businessmen have begun to learn to go the way, bribe the officials of the imperial court, maybe their goods can be sent first.

However, under normal circumstances, those who can get accommodation are the elite class, and ordinary small businessmen can only wait in line helplessly, and whether they can send the goods to the destination in time depends entirely on luck, one is the luck of when the goods can get on the car, and the other is the luck of whether the road is smooth.

Therefore, even if you take the railway, there is still a certain risk for businessmen, but compared with the previous mountain road, this risk is reduced too much.

And because of the convenience of the railway, therefore, after the rise of the railway, taking the railway has been the inevitable choice of the businessman, if he still takes the previous mountain road, then such a businessman will inevitably be eliminated by this era, no matter how high the old capital can also be emptied, unless the goods he sells are not allowed by the imperial court, or, he monopolizes this product.

It is precisely because the railway plays an important and irreplaceable role in commerce and national defense and people's livelihood that the imperial court attaches great importance to the railway and keeps this transportation facility in its own hands, thus obtaining a huge source of funds for the imperial court.

Among them, the problem of corruption is naturally inevitable, and all the relevant court posts on the railway line are all fat shortages, but the problem of corruption in Chinese officialdom has been very serious since ancient times, no matter what era it is, it seems that it will never be difficult to find a solution.

Li An didn't care too much about the corruption of Tang officials, because as long as the cake was made big enough, even if some moths were raised, it would not have much impact, and when necessary, some more excessive moths could be singled out to rob the house and punish the crime, and then obtain sufficient wealth for the Tang Dynasty.

The corruption of the court is a major hazard to the court, but as long as there is enough food at home, some corruption is not too serious, at least, it will be covered by the glorious prosperity, and raising these corrupt elements is like raising pigs, as long as these piglets are fat, sooner or later it will attract the attention of the master, if the master is hungry, he will choose a few fat fat pigs to kill, and then continue to wait for the rest of the thin pigs to become fat pigs, and then continue to slaughter, in short, the fat pig will be calculated, and it will not be the opponent of the pig farmer, and a smart pig, The smartest way to protect yourself is not to be too greedy, the more you eat, the faster you die.

Therefore, there is a saying since ancient times, people are afraid of being famous, pigs are afraid of being strong, this is the summary of the experience of predecessors, and it is the absolute truth.

Of course, these are not his own responsibilities, Ang Lee's personal energy is very limited, and he must devote all his limited energy to the research and development of various advanced equipment, as for the headache of officialdom, leave it to others to play! Ang Lee won't wade into this troubled water.

The fortified defense of Gibraltar, as well as the commercial planning of the port, had already been completed, and construction had even begun on several of the more important sites.

Li An first made a serious visit and affirmed the efforts of his subordinates, and then put forward some suggestions for improvement, mainly on the basis of the blueprint designed by his subordinates, adding several turret defense points, so as to make Gibraltar's defense capability more powerful.

After resting for two days, Ang Lee led a huge fleet of Datang ships and left the port of Gibraltar, preparing to return to Datang all the way back to his home.

Before leaving, Li An left 500 Tang soldiers stationed in Gibraltar, their garrison period, the most is three years, the least is one year, there will be other soldiers to replace them, in addition to 500 soldiers, there are about 200 officials and technical personnel, the whole Gibraltar, Li An left 700 people, although the number is not very much, but it is enough, they will shoulder the responsibility of defending the westernmost part of the Tang Maritime Silk Road.

After the fleet departed, the voyage was quite smooth, more than ten days of sailing did not encounter a storm, it seems that the sea conditions in the Mediterranean Sea are still good, and the bad weather is not very much.

After docking at the northern port of Egypt, Ang Lee and all the officers and men of his command left the ships, returned them to the Ottomans, and then rushed directly to the northern part of the Red Sea.

When passing by the capital of Egypt along the way, Ang Lee did not forget to visit the pyramids, visit his old friend Osman by the way, and then leave after a half-day rest, and returning to Datang as soon as possible is what Ang Lee wants to do most.

After another few days of arduous trekking, Ang Lee and his party finally arrived at the port on the northern shore of the Red Sea, which is the northernmost point of the Red Sea and the southern starting point of the Datang Canal.

After just one or two months of development, the population of the town has more than tripled, and the construction of the port is also continuing, and the original port has expanded several times to berth more ships.

Because the imperial court attached great importance to the Grand Canal, which connected the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, a large number of various equipment was gradually mobilized from the mainland and along the way, and many of these equipment had already been transported to Canal City, and was preserved here, ready to officially excavate the Grand Canal.

Before the excavation of the Grand Canal, the five bridges across the Grand Canal had to be built in advance, which would reduce the amount of work and make the bridge stronger.

Of course, at the same time as the bridge was built, this section of the canal was dug up.

"Li Shilang, the imperial court attaches great importance to the Datang Canal project, has mobilized a large number of personnel and machines from the mainland, now, the five canal bridges have started at the same time, it is estimated that it will be completed in half a year, the opening of the entire canal, according to the current machinery and manpower, it is estimated that it will take at least five or six years, this is still on the basis of everything going well, if you can add some more manpower and machines, the completion can be faster."

The subordinates of Canal City replied when they saw Li An coming to inspect the work.

After all, it took the Western powers of later generations to complete the construction of the canal in a full eleven years, and Datang can be twice as fast as them, which is very enviable.

Of course, the premise of being able to complete the task so quickly is that everything can develop according to the predetermined schedule, and if there are various unexpected situations along the way, this time will be delayed by the queen, and no one can be sure when it will be completely repaired.

It is said that in the process of digging the canal, Western companies encountered too many technical, political and financial problems, so the excavation took only 11 years, and the cost was more than twice the original budget.

If Datang wants not to repeat the mistakes of Western countries in later generations, it must be more fully prepared, technical problems, may often encounter, but this problem is the easiest to overcome, political problems are not to worry about at all, Datang already has the Sinai Peninsula, fully capable of avoiding this problem.

As for the issue of funds, as long as there is really a shortage, Li An will definitely find a way to persuade the imperial court to find a way to allocate funds, but it is really not possible, you can also borrow some funds from the surrounding countries, and even ask for help from the surrounding businessmen, so that they can support the Datang construction team and provide sufficient financial guarantee for the construction team by means of preferential means in the future.

In short, Li An is well prepared, in order to better build the Datang Canal, he has already thought about various situations, backed up a number of emergency plans, once these problems are encountered, the remaining officials will operate according to Li An's tricks, so as to solve the difficulties encountered.

Although the length of the Datang Canal is hundreds of miles, it is a bit of a big deal compared to the Grand Canal built by the Sui Dynasty, and the construction time of the Grand Canal of the Sui Dynasty is not very long, in the case of no machinery at all, it took six years to complete the construction of the entire Grand Canal, which is simply a miracle in the history of human civilization, in comparison, the length of only one-tenth of the Datang Canal is very small.

However, the Grand Canal dug by the Sui Dynasty was for inland transport ships, and the width and depth of the canal must be relatively low, while the Tang Canal was to communicate the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, and it was necessary to drive super-large cargo ships in the future, so in terms of draft and width, it was naturally higher, but even so, the amount of work was not as good as the canal of the Sui Dynasty.

The reason why the Grand Canal of the Sui Dynasty was built so quickly was entirely because Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty was so happy that he had mobilized five million laborers to build the canal, which caused such a fast speed, that is, as long as the manpower and material resources were sufficient, no matter how huge the project was, it could be completed in a very short time.

This is because large projects can be subdivided into many areas, the more people involved, the more areas that can be allocated, and the more manpower in each area, so that no matter how big the project is, there is nothing to be afraid of, and the speed can naturally increase many times.

The countries around the Datang Canal are not too full of human resources, so it is unrealistic to want to mobilize millions of manpower, but there is no problem in mobilizing two or three hundred thousand people, the entire Li An and the leaders on both sides have already negotiated, Artik's 100,000 laborers have joined the construction of the bridge, the Ottoman labor force has also reached more than half, and the remaining manpower is still on the way, in short, since he has promised Li An, he will definitely not talk and count, These manpower, coupled with the technical talents transferred from the local area by the Tang Dynasty, are sufficient.

In addition, the construction of the Datang Canal, there are a large number of machines to help, and the efficiency of the machine is incomparable to manual work, the gap is not ordinarily large, so, as long as everything goes smoothly, Li An has enough reason to believe that the Datang Canal can be completed within five or six years, if Datang can transfer more machines and technical personnel to help, the completion time will naturally be shorter.

"Yes, you did a good job, when the official returns to the capital, he will definitely find a way to persuade the imperial court to transfer more machines and talents to you, you will do a good job."

Ang Lee opened his mouth to encourage these builders.