With the blueprint for the economic development of the four states, the governments have shifted their focus to the development of people's livelihood, and the development of people's livelihood is naturally indispensable. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

After 10 consecutive years of peaceful and stable development, the fiscal revenue of the pastoral government has reached 18 million yuan, and this is only the money and taxes, not including the grain collected.

In fact, not only in terms of finance, the population of Liaodong is nearly 4 million more than the 16 million in the first year of Taikang. A large part of this extra population comes from the Hu people of various ethnic groups such as Di, Qiang, Xiongnu, and Xianbei who are naturalized in Liaodong, and a small part comes from the population that is hidden and not reported by major families.

If there is more money, it will naturally be spent, and most of the budget will be taken away by the Sizhou Thorn History, but even so, the pastoral government still has a lot of money in its hands.

In addition to investing in the economic development of the four states, Weishuo most wants to invest in the construction of the Grand Canal, which runs through the north and south. If it is said that the cement highway from Yumen in the west to Qingdao in the east is the main artery connecting the east and west of Liaodong. In the future, the 1,800-kilometer-long canal that runs through the north and south and connects several major rivers such as the Huang, Huai, and Yangtze rivers will be the water transportation that strengthens the connection between the north and the south in eastern Liaoning.

Since the start of the war last year, Cao Cao, under the assignment of the pastoral government, has begun to plan the North-South Grand Canal. Considering that the situation in the north is relatively stable, Liaodong first plans to start digging the Grand Canal between the Huanghuai and the Yellow River.

In order to solve the problem of labor shortage, Liaodong expected to 'conscript' hundreds of thousands of local indigenous slaves from Nanyang to perform certain dangerous and difficult jobs. If a project as vast as the excavation of a canal always kills people, why can't the casualties be transferred to the natives? Anyway, it's not a Jin person, and no one cares about how many deaths you have.

Digging the North-South Grand Canal, Wei Shuo can be described as calculating and calculating, he doesn't want to be like Emperor Yang of Sui in history, but in the end he makes wedding clothes for others. Historically, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty dug this Grand Canal with great political and economic significance, and as a result, all the benefits brought by the canal were enjoyed by later dynasties, while he himself became infamous through the ages.

That's not all, the emperors of later dynasties enjoyed the benefits of the canal on the one hand, and on the other hand, they did not forget to curse Emperor Yang of Sui for a few cruel words.

Wei Shuo felt sad for Emperor Yang of Sui as soon as he thought of this, in order not to follow the path of Emperor Yang of Sui, he did not dare to abuse the people's power excessively, so he also abolished the ancient labor system early and changed it to an employment system.

While this increases the burden on the government, it benefits the common people and, to some extent, inhibits the rejoicing of successors.

In history, some emperors insisted on starting some huge projects for the sake of the so-called face and pleasure needs, regardless of the hardships of the people, which eventually led to the boiling of public resentment. Now, if there is not enough budget in Liaodong, he will not be able to build any kind of project. If it is supplemented by a strict auditing and budgeting system, it will firmly control the arrogance and indulgence of the latecomers.

In order to speed up the construction of the canal, Weishuo deliberately set aside 5 million guan from the financial revenue as a start-up capital.

At the same time, in order to ensure that every penny is used for the construction of the canal, he asked the Supervision Bureau, Ji Cao, and Zuo Shi Peng to send personnel to carry out all-round monitoring of the movement of funds.

Just one canal project made the operation Cao share 5 million, and made the operation of Cao Wang Yan look proud. He held a stack of materials in his arms and walked briskly to visit Wei Shuo.

"The minister, the head of Cao, Wang Yan, pays a visit to the king!"

"Li Gong is here?"

Wei Shuo was staring at a map in a daze, and when he turned around, he found that Wang Yan was bowing and saluting, and hurriedly asked the other party to get up.

This Wang Yan was originally a puppet Han minister, and was captured by Liaodong when Han and Zhao fell.

Wei Shuo saw his upright reputation, and deliberately selected him to join the pastoral mansion as the director of Cao.

Over the years, Wang Yan has worked hard and gradually become a capable officer in the pastoral government.

"My lord, this is the canal excavation plan that Cao took out after investigation and research. Not counting the start-up capital of 5 million guan this year, it is expected that the pastoral government will invest 1 million guan every year from next year, and it will take at least 20 years to complete the grand canal connecting the north and south. ”

"The canal flows from north to south through the seven prefectures of You, Qing, Henan, Hebei, Xu, Yan and Yang, and will communicate the five major water systems of our country, namely the Haihe River, the Yellow River, the Huai River, the Yangtze River, the Qiantang River and a series of lakes along the coast."

"Considering that the flow direction, water source and drainage conditions of the North-South Canal are different in each section, the construction conditions will be very complex."

"Well, yes, Cao Cao has thought it all through. For the construction of the northern section of the canal, what are the plans for the operation of Cao? ”

"My lord, now the construction is about to start is the Yongji Canal located on the north bank of the Yellow River, the starting point of the canal starts from the mouth of the Qin River on the other side of Luoyang, and then uses the Wei River and Yongding River and other natural channels to dig and deepen, will go straight to Youzhou Jicheng. The journey is more than 1,900 miles long and is expected to take five years to complete. ”

"After the completion of the Yongji Canal, the next step will be to excavate the Tongji Canal. The starting point of the Tongji Canal is in Luoyang, and its main role is to communicate the two major rivers of the Yellow River and the Huai River. The Tongji Canal is located on the south bank of the Yellow River and is divided into two sections, east and west. ”

"Considering that there are a lot of works left over from the previous dynasties on this section of the canal, the operation of Cao will make full use of the abandoned canal sites. The western section is expanded on the basis of the East Hanyang Canal, which starts from the west of Luoyang, takes Luoshui and its tributaries Gushui as the water source, passes through the south of Luoyang City, reaches the southeast of Yanshi, and then follows Luoshui into the Yellow River. ”

"The eastern section starts from Banzhu on the edge of the Yellow River in the northwest of Xingyang in the west, leads the water of the Yellow River into Bianshui, a tributary of the Huai River, passes through Junyi (now Kaifeng) and other counties, and then turns to the southeast, passes through Su County, and flows into Huaishui at Xuyi."

"During the construction, even if the operation Cao made full use of the old channels and natural channels, because of the uniform width and depth, it still had to rely on manual excavation, and the project was huge and arduous."

"The two sections are nearly 2,000 miles long and are expected to take five years to complete."

"In addition, considering the need to connect Chang'an and Luoyang for water transportation, Cao also plans to dig the Guangtong Canal between Weishui and the Yellow River, which is more than 300 miles long, and will be navigable after completion, and strengthen the connection between Guanzhong and the Central Plains."

"The amount of work is not small! It will take at least ten years to complete the construction of the northern section of the canal! ”

Wei Shuo carefully studied the canal plan that Wang Yan came up with, and found that the plan proposed by Xing Cao basically included the content of the canal expansion in later dynasties. It is precisely because of this that the canal project is huge and takes a long time.

"My lord, according to the calculations of the ministers and subordinates, the northern section of the canal alone requires tens of millions of dollars, and the labor required is nearly two million people."

"Two million? That's a lot! Hey, it takes so much labor, how are you going to solve it? ”

"Back to the lord, as for the labor problem, the minister has a solution. Except for the captives captured in the Liaodong War, most of the rest of the manpower had to be solved by the indigenous slaves of Nanyang. Only a small number of projects that are not dangerous need to be recruited by the government. ”

"And thanks to the continuous innovation of various technologies in Liaodong in recent years, especially the promotion of various machinery and equipment, Liaodong has reduced its excessive dependence on human resources for large-scale projects."

"With such a combination of measures, although the canal project is huge, the civil power mobilized in Liaodong is not large, and the price of government employees is high, so the adverse impact on the people is very small."

"Oh, I see."

Hearing this, Wei Shuo bowed his head slightly, and although Liaodong was not comparable to the Great Sui Dynasty in terms of population and economic scale, it could definitely throw off the other party a few streets in terms of technology accumulation. After ten years of development, the handicraft industry has become the mainstream of Liaodong, and the replacement of manpower by machinery is the goal pursued by all walks of life.

Wei Shuo's expectations for the North-South Canal are no less than the cement roads in Liaodong, and although the land transportation is convenient, the transportation of bulk goods is still the most reliable by water.

Once the North-South Canal is opened, it will be a great supplement to the development of shipping in eastern Liaoning, greatly strengthen the exchanges between the north and the south, and make the economic distribution of eastern Liaoning more reasonable in the future.

Historically, the development of the Yangtze River basin was carried out after the Yellow River basin had been destroyed by war, and since the Sui and Tang dynasties, China has formed a situation in which the economic and cultural center is in the south, while the political and military center is in the north. (To be continued.) )