In the first month of the twelfth year of the Apocalypse, the people of the Tang Empire have not yet come out of the New Year's Festival, and the high-level leaders are also preparing for the upcoming Imperial Conference, and even the two major political parties that have been formed are quietly waiting for the first Senate election to be held immediately after the Imperial Conference. At this time, far away in the Egyptian province of the Great Food Empire, at the southernmost point of the map route marked by Xuan Yingwei, the stronghold established by the navy here, Suez City. There is already a small town here, but there are not many inhabitants, less than 1,000 people. Because it was used as the starting point of the canal in the design drawing, the Great Food Empire directly turned this place into a temporary port, and sent Minfu to assist the navy in repairing three long trestle bridges, extending to the Gulf of Suez for nearly 100 meters, so as to facilitate the docking of Datang transport ships, and rows of houses and endless open-air warehouses were also established on the shore and land as a place for the early stationing personnel to rest and rest.

"Lord Lin, this is the route we have drawn up for the construction of the canal based on the topographic map of Xuan Yingwei and the joint field investigation of the two companies of us." Because the Xu's Canal Dredging Company is the main unit of the canal construction, after discussing with the Chang'an Construction Company, Xu Anmo, the son of Xu Ning, the political envoy of Bianzhou, asked Lin Yuantu, the commander-in-chief of the canal excavation, to report the final plan.

"The southernmost point from the Gulf of Suez to the north to the Great Bitter Lake is about fifty miles, and the distance is not too long, but the minister, there is a special shortage of water here, and our well digging team has been looking for almost half a month in the surrounding area and has only found less than three wells, and the water output is not large, even if we add the few wells that originally existed in Suez City, I am afraid that it will not be able to support the consumption of so many of us here." Xu Anmo's words made Lin Yuantu frown, in this ghost place where the annual rainfall in the desert is not as good as the rainfall of a few days in the Central Plains, it is really necessary to build a Grand Canal with a width of at least more than 100 meters according to Li Xuanqing, it really makes him in a dilemma, if this water diversion problem is not solved, I am afraid that even the number of people will not be able to increase.

"It's better to start from the north end, at least the north end is not only close to the capital of Egypt, Phoenicia, but the most important thing is this big lake, which is a freshwater lake, not to mention a big river next to it." Chang'an Construction Company is the company that built the Yellow River Bridge, and has become a first-class construction company in China by relying on its outstanding construction skills over the years. The fact that the company was able to win the job that was originally handed over to the State Construction Corporation was even more exciting for everyone in the company, but now the cruelty of the reality has made these people gradually realize the impact of the terrain and environment on their projects.

"I remember when I was building a railway in the northwest desert of China, didn't I use pipelines to transport water? Aren't there a few big rivers in this area? Water can be drawn from this place. If it doesn't work, I'll ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to coordinate with the Great Food Empire to establish a water intake point on this big river, and then pass through this area to set up five water intake points directly on this fifty-mile road, isn't it okay? Lin Yuantu looked at the map and said, "At this time, I can't care about the distance." You immediately arrange someone to calculate the distance, and I will be responsible for contacting the Great Food Empire and the navy, and urgently send someone back to China to transport the cement pipes, and we will repair the waterway first and then the river. Lin Yuantu almost without thinking about it, immediately made a decision, and asked the Marines stationed in the Suez Canal to immediately dispatch a brigade of troops to immediately escort several technicians to the source of the Abrim River to explore the construction of a cement pipeline water transmission route. According to the distance calculation on the map, the distance will definitely not be less than three or four hundred miles, and it also needs to be equipped with a special pumping machine.

Lin Yuantu's order was sent to Song Lingxun ten days later, that is, on the eleventh day of the first month of the twelfth year of the Apocalypse, with the urgent transmission of the secret guard. Although Song Lingxun didn't understand why Lin Yuantu needed so many cement pipes, he also attached a special size drawing, and asked the canal logistics department to immediately purchase three high-horsepower pumping machines to load the ship and ship Suez. During this time, most of the engineers and technicians who went to Egypt from China were guided by the navy to be stationed in Wolong Port first, and at the same time, Ayebi on the side of the Great Food Empire also quickly replied to Lin Yuantu, and specially sent more than 1,000 people to listen to the dispatch of the canal headquarters. And Lin Yuantu also asked Xu Anmo to mobilize enough manpower to take these people who came to listen to the use of food rations to dig ravines along the way. The cement pipes were not difficult at all when the large cement factories in Persia Province had been put into operation, so under the coordination of Song Lingxun, three days later, on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, thousands of cement pipes were directly loaded and shipped to the Red Sea in the Persian Governor's Palace. However, the province of Persia does not have a high-horsepower pump, but it has also arranged for people to go to Jiaohe City to let the manufacturing plant there purchase it.

When Lin Yuantu saw the cement pipes that were transported, he almost called everyone in Suez City to start splicing the cement pipes together one by one, and then under the guidance of the engineers, he headed towards the source of the Abrim River, where the technicians and accompanying marines had already begun to dig a large water storage point in the source of the river, directly dug and blocked half of the river, and then relied on explosives to blow up one of the original embankments. The river was diverted to a low-lying area to the east, and then people were mobilized from the rear to urgently dig and dig deep into this low-lying land, and build a dam to intercept the river. Even in order to be able to reach enough water, these guys are ready to directly block the entire river if necessary. Then, the height is continuously measured along the way to reasonably arrange the secondary water storage points and pumps. In this way, the whole project involved more than 300 miles long, and two pumping machines were installed along the way to ensure that the water could flow through the long pipeline of more than 300 miles to reach the water point. In order to pursue the progress of such a huge project, Lin Yuantu even asked to start construction day and night regardless of the bad weather, and thousands of people in the early stage plus the marines worked together to lay more than 20 miles a day at a speed of continuous construction, and after more than half a month, finally brought a ray of clear spring to the canal project. And when the boiling water sprayed out of the mouth of the pipe, almost everyone began to cheer, and only with water in the desert can there be life, and only then can there be civilization inheritance.

After having a water source, Lin Yuantu immediately ordered the entire canal project to be officially launched. In addition to the personnel in the early stage, whether it is the Great Food Empire or the Wolong Port where the information was obtained, personnel are being sent to Suez on a large scale. In half a month, nearly 100,000 people were accumulated on the route between Suez and Lake Daku, which is more than 50 miles long. When the large-scale excavation and transportation machinery and equipment in Datang had not yet been transported, under the leadership of Datang engineers and technicians, these nearly 100,000 big eaters relied on their shoulders to resist and began to dig the river on a large scale with a hammer and a shovel. Because it was the Tang Dynasty that contracted the excavation and siege of the entire canal, and the Great Food side was only responsible for providing the people, so the food and drink of the nearly 100,000 people even had to rely on the fleet that was flowing day and night from the Persian Governor's Palace. This is also the reason why Zhang Qiang and Xu Xingxia received Qiaoxi's order when they were in Chang'an, asking them to mobilize two large fleets to the Persian Governor's Mansion to assist the Zhang family and the Ma family in transporting supplies. For this huge and long-term transportation task, the Zhang family and the Ma family even transferred all their ships that could sail to the Persian Governorship, but they were still unable to transport more and more building materials and all kinds of machinery and equipment. Therefore, after the Xu family and the royal fleet arrived at the Persian Governor's Palace, Ma Mengdie, who was sitting in the Persian Governor's Palace, was overjoyed, arranged for the fleet to enter the port to load the goods as soon as possible, and then paid for the entire restaurant in the Persian Governor's Mansion to feed the crew of the fleet. With their joining, the entire convoy was finally able to gain a foothold with the help of dozens of state-of-the-art freighters. On the Suez side, after countless manpower excavations and the large muck trucks of excavators and conveyors that gradually arrived, the speed suddenly increased. Therefore, although Li Xuanqing has strict requirements for the depth of the canal to be no less than 50 meters and a width of not less than 100 meters, neither Xu Anmo nor Lin Yuantu has much opinion on this, and even the two have discussed that after the Chang'an Construction Company guaranteed that they could build a bridge with a span of more than 500 meters here, Li Xuanqing's not less than 100 meters was directly changed to not less than 200 meters, and even the actual width of most of the main river sections directly exceeded 250 meters when the final completion and acceptance were completed. In some areas, it even reached an astonishing width of three hundred meters directly.

The canal dredging company that accompanied Xu Anmo dug the river, and the sand that was dug up was transported to other places for accumulation. The Chang'an Construction Company also began to build the bridge in accordance with the previous plan and the recently revised places, and the construction of the bridge began almost simultaneously above and below the river, although this required close coordination between the two parties, but the speed was much faster. In just one month, they actually dug out more than three miles of river sections. The width and depth of the river channel surprised even Ayebi and other high-ranking officials of the Great Food Empire who came to inspect it. And the steady stream of large machinery that came over also made these big cannibals look hot. This kind of large construction machinery, which can often surpass dozens or even hundreds of people, even almost made these high-level executives directly move the idea of snatching it back.

"Your Excellency, can I dig the canal faster than you request?" Lin Yuantu has been eating and living on the construction site for almost a month, and the whole person has been tanned for a whole circle, but he looks very good in spirit, seeing Ah Yebi's eyes from everyone, he still doesn't know the thoughts of these people, but even if they come to grab it, they may not be able to please it. Although the Marines were stationed in Suez with less than 6,000 men, two or so troops, they were armed to the teeth, and one of them was directly equipped with nearly ten machine guns to protect the safety of the engineering team and machinery, and all kinds of artillery made him, a civilian official who had never been on the battlefield, look terrified. So Lin Yuantu took the initiative to pull these people to the river and said with a smile: "Everyone, please see, my Datang will be there, more than ten miles away from Suez City, to build a bridge across the canal, and the standards are all in accordance with the bridges in my Datang country, what do you think?" ”

Lin Yuantu's almost ostentatious words introduced his construction blueprint here little by little. After the construction of the entire canal is completed, dozens of settlements and towns of all sizes will be established on both sides of the river, ensuring that an economic corridor will be established on this part of the canal. So Lin Yuantu said with a smile: "Everyone, this is equivalent to Datang giving you a permanent prosperous land, and when our operation period expires, including this bridge, it will be handed over to you." ”

"Thank you to the Kingdom and His Majesty the Emperor for their selfless help to my Great Food. On behalf of the Caliph and the Abbasids, I would like to pay tribute to you and the countless workers from God who have helped my country, and I have also brought the Caliph's condolences to you as a token of my appreciation. "Ayebi didn't have so much thought, he came to see these canals and bridges and ancillary facilities sincerely, so he directly sent a large number of condolence gifts and a large number of purchased meat and so on. Although the Great Food only needs to provide the people according to the provisions of the treaty, in the eyes of the Caliph, all of them rely on the Tang Dynasty, but they also seem to be too incompetent with the Great Food Empire, so where will the face of his great caliph go? Although the Great Food Empire has been declared a minister when he submitted his credentials to the Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty did not really require itself to be a minister, at least some of the trade is on an equal footing, so the caliph began to think about how to save his face after hearing the news that the canal has been constructed. Therefore, he directly asked Ah Yebi to take the opportunity to come to inspect and bring a large amount of grain and meat, and even a lot of special foods specially bought from Datang.

Lin Yuantu took part of the marines to take the mountain of grain and then rushed to the construction site, and Ayebi did not stay longer after completing the task, he also had to go to Phoenicia City to deal with the transfer of civilian husbands and arrange the retreat of some soldiers and civilians, the war of Daqin against the Gauls is about to end, so it is inevitable to do something to Da Shi in the future, as the key pass and center connecting the territory of Da Shi, it will inevitably be the key point of the opponent's naval attack, so many civil preparations must be arranged in advance. However, most of the generals who came with him began to set off on the official ships of the Tang Dynasty to the Persian Governorate to receive the six new warships that were nearing completion. It's just that when these people left, they frowned when they saw the endless stream of Datang transport fleets coming and going on the Red Sea. In their opinion, this is not a civilian transport ship at all, this is simply an invincible ironclad ship, but the Tang Dynasty uses them as civilian ships, it can be imagined how strong the distant Eastern Empire has become? The admirals of the Great Food Empire had never fought with the Tang Dynasty, so they had basically heard about the combat power of the Tang Tiance Army, but at this time, they felt an inexplicable tremor when they saw these iron-hulled freighters. And once the Grand Canal in the distance is built, will it be repaired for Dashi or for his Tang Dynasty?