Liu Zhi first tested the previous results, and as he expected, the progress was slim.

Without the basis of physical theory, it is impossible to build a steam engine based on experience alone.

Therefore, after careful consideration, Liu Zhi gave up the plan to let the craftsmen of the Ministry of Internal Affairs continue to develop and set his sights on those apprentices instead.

A few years ago, he reformed the inheritance of craftsmen, from following his master and apprentice for life, to teaching in a unified manner.

It is necessary to learn not only professional knowledge and skills, but also cultural knowledge, learn to draw drawings, etc., which were added later.

Although the craftsmen of the older generation did not agree with these bells and whistles in their hearts, they were of low status and had no other way but to obey.

Your Majesty is high, where does he understand this?

Therefore, some of the apprentices still listened to the master's advice and silently focused on honing their skills.

With that flexible mind, he was keenly aware of His Majesty's emphasis on craftsmen, and completed the assigned learning tasks meticulously.

It's a subject that the more you learn, the more interesting it becomes, and before you know it, you become addicted to it and can't extricate yourself.

So now there are two distinct factions among the apprentices.

One faction follows the old path, assiduously studying the skills in hand, and dreams of one day becoming a skilled craftsman.

The other faction, on the other hand, is a bit unscrupulous in their eyes, gathering together all day long, always making some strange models, and arguing with red faces.

Seeing that the old craftsmen shook their heads, craftsmen from ancient times to the present day are cheap jobs, and they don't think that they will become noble after reading two sentences.

It's really a fool's dream, I don't know how thick the sky is.

Especially this time, when His Majesty was disappointed in them, he turned his head to find these hairy boys.

Wouldn't it be even more impossible to hand over to them what even these great craftsmen couldn't come up with.

When Liu Zhi found these little craftsmen, he didn't dare to hold out any hope, but after talking with them, he was very touched.

It's not that they are so powerful, after all, they are completely self-taught, and there is no social environment, is it possible to break through to become physicists without historical limitations?

Of course not.

But their level still surprised Liu Zhi, these people came from poor backgrounds, and even their ancestors were inferior people for generations.

Such an identity meant that they had never had the opportunity to receive an education, let alone traditional Confucianism.

Therefore, when they are learning, they do not have any ideological constraints, and their learning methods are first accepted mechanically, and then digested bit by bit.

Over the years, their physical level has far surpassed that of most Confucian scholars of the same era, and their hands-on ability is very strong, and they will always use various experiments to prove the truth in the book.

Therefore, when Liu Zhi took out the redrawn drawings of the steam engine, it immediately aroused their strong interest.

To this end, Liu Zhi selected more than a dozen outstanding ones, and selected some from the craftsman apprentices of the Ministry of Industry.

Together, more than 30 people formed a research and development team.

And let the Ministry of Internal Affairs specially allocate a quiet courtyard, all the tools, materials and materials must be unconditionally supplied.

Speaking of the Internal Affairs Office, Liu Zhi has to admire Fang Zhi, this person is obviously also educated, but he is very generous.

Even if you don't agree with things in your heart, you will adopt a tolerant and supportive attitude, and over the years, most of Liu Zhi's scientific and technological inventions have been produced in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

And Fang Zhi is meticulously completed, and even in order to be able to better complete the task, he has studied hard himself over the years.

So much so that he is obviously a great talent and deserves a better position, but Liu Zhi has kept him in this position for more than ten years for convenience.

Among the important ministers of the imperial court, Liu Zhi felt that he was the most sorry for him.

But Fang Zhi himself doesn't care, he is still conscientious for more than ten years.

Sometimes Liu Zhi rewarded him with some money, and he donated it without leaving any of it.

Among his sons, two of them are indeed not reading materials, and they have taken the exam several times, but they haven't even made a lot of talent. When Liu Zhi heard about it, he wanted to give them a grace and let them directly become officials or scribes.

As a result, he was rejected by Fang Zhi Zhenzhen, looking at his tone and expression, as if Liu Zhi was not giving grace, but harming him.

After a few times, Liu Zhi had no choice but to let him go.

Fang Zhi has always been more supportive of the younger generations, even if it is some lowly apprentices, although they are serious, they have never looked down on them.

And he knew that His Majesty valued this project very much, so he took great care of this research team, hoping that they would be able to produce results one day sooner.

After this, Liu Zhi intended to expand the scope of learning in his apprenticeship, teaching mathematics and physics, as well as some simple chemical knowledge.

He didn't understand the more esoteric knowledge, but these things were more than enough for the ancients.

Just like many seeds, as long as a large number of seeds are sown, one day, some of them will blossom and bear fruit.

In the winter of this year, Liu Kui, the king of Bohai, was finally going to get married, and he chose a woman from an ordinary family.

Although her appearance is outstanding, the Empress Dowager Yun always feels a little regretful, and she wrote to Mrs. Ma to discuss it, but the latter agreed.

There was no way, so I had to decide to come down like this, and after a year of preparation, I got married at the end of the year, and the Empress Dowager Yun personally presided over the wedding for him.

Next spring, after the spring flowers bloom, Liu Kui will take his new wife to Pingyuan County to visit his mother and brother first.

He then returned to his fiefdom of Bohai County, and was henceforth forbidden to enter Kyoto without a summons.

Although Liu Kui was reluctant in his heart, it was a pity that he did not have the courage to challenge Liu Zhi's authority.

In the middle of this year, there was another incident that Liu Zhi found very interesting, Gyeonggi Province General Cao Teng was happy to have his eldest grandson.

According to the convention, when there is a major event in the family of the close ministers around him, he will send someone to send a congratulatory gift to show his honor, and when he heard that Cao Teng had a grandson, he was naturally no exception.

For this reason, Cao Teng personally brought his son Cao Song over to thank him.

"Thank you, Your Majesty, and I can't thank you enough."

Cao Teng is old, but he is still in good spirits, Cao Song reads well, and naturally takes the path of the imperial examination.

Now he is serving as an attendant in the cabinet, although he only has six grades, he often shows his face by the emperor's side, which is much better than ordinary positions.

Cao Teng himself is a eunuch, and he is of course full of joy to be able to serve as a general and to have his grandson.

Liu Zhi exchanged a few words with him, and then asked casually, "Do you have a name?" ”

"It's been raised, the name is good, and it means to be noble."

Cao Teng immediately replied respectfully.

Liu Zhi was stunned, "Cao Cao? ”

After so long, he has almost forgotten that Cao Cao, the male lord of the Three Kingdoms, is Cao Teng's eldest grandson.

If you do the math, it was indeed born in the past two years.

The change of history made him forget a lot of things, but he didn't expect that there was still a part of it and continued to follow the original path.

Seeing his strange face, Cao Teng was shocked, "What's wrong with this name?" ”

Liu Zhi came back to his senses at this time, "A child's name, what's wrong with it, you're too careful." ”

He added with a smile, "This name is very good, teach it well, and there may be a big future in the future." ”

Cao Teng was relieved when he heard this, and hurriedly thanked him, to say that what Liu Zhi admired most about him was his modesty and prudence as always.

No matter what the status is, it has never changed.

After their father and son left, Liu Zhi couldn't help but shake his head and smile, Cao Cao was born as scheduled, so what?

As long as he can create a peaceful and prosperous world, no one is afraid of being born, on the contrary, if the country is in chaos, even if there is no Cao Cao, there will be other heroes who will appear and compete for the world.

He doesn't need to get rid of him now, just take precautions.

On the first day of the second year, Liu Zhi decided to change the yuan.

He feels that his first stage goal has been achieved, and now he has entered a new stage, so the era name needs to be adjusted accordingly.

Therefore, the first year of Jianning was born.

In the summer of this year, after a year of transformation, Cheng'en Gong Deng Yan finally decided to start a voyage.

He led five ships, a dozen large ships that could carry seven or eight hundred people, from Haizhou to the west along the South Pacific.

In the summer of the first year of Jianning, Liu Zhi finally put forward the idea of building the Grand Canal and handed it over to the ministers of the court and the central government to discuss.

Li Ying, Chen Fan and other close ministers have long known that the emperor has such a plan, but they have never put it on the agenda.

After all, the national strength was not strong enough before, and it may not be a good thing for the country and the people to start such a large project rashly.

After a few years of resumption of production, the major granaries gradually became full again, and with the influence of the Silk Road trade, commerce and handicrafts also flourished.

At the beginning of his accession to the throne, the annual tax revenue was only 78 billion yuan, but now in just a dozen years, it has skyrocketed to more than 20 billion yuan.

And this momentum is still increasing rapidly, and I believe that Dahan will become richer and richer year by year.

Although there have been some local disasters in the past two years, the disaster relief mechanism is now perfect due to the relatively good overall situation of the country.

So it didn't have a big impact, coupled with the rapid development of technology, cement and explosives, and the use of various simple machinery in engineering.

This makes the huge project that used to take more than ten years to complete be shortened to a few years, and the manpower and material resources consumed are naturally much less.

There are many obvious benefits to the canal, the first of which is transportation, which is larger and more convenient for shipping than land.

The second benefit, of course, is the south-to-north water diversion project, which transports excess water resources from the south to areas prone to drought in the north, which is also equivalent to a large-scale water conservancy project.

So after a few days of discussion in the court, most people acknowledged that there were many benefits to this plan, but the key was whether it should start now.

Will it seriously weaken the local economy and consume a lot of money and grain from the state treasury?

If the decision is made to build, how to arrange the route is also a big problem.

Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty built the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, although it was of far-reaching historical significance, but it accelerated the demise of his own dynasty.

In the end, he was infamous as a tyrant through the ages.

The reason for this is that he did the right thing at the wrong time.

But Liu Zhi felt that the environment was very different from that time, and he also considered the consequences and planned to divide the project into three phases to complete.

Moreover, along the way, the state and county can be excavated at the same time, and then connected in sections, so there is no need to transfer the people around, and the people will lose money.

He has such confidence because as early as a few years ago, he began to send people to survey the terrain and investigate the route.

Strive to plan the most reasonable and efficient route.

In fact, since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, many countries have been digging canals, and the purpose at that time was for military convenience.

During the period of the Three Kingdoms and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, it has always been a troubled time, and it is impossible for anyone to open the canal, what Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty did was mainly to connect the various sections of the canal and make it unimpeded.

Otherwise, with the productivity of the Sui Dynasty, how could it be so easy to succeed.

Among the existing canals, Xuxi and Xupu are the earliest sections of the Grand Canal to take shape, and they are also the embryonic period of the canal.

According to legend, it was named after Wu Zixu, the doctor of Wu, who ruled the lower reaches of the Yangtze River at that time, and after Wu had already conquered Chu and Yue, only Qi was in front of him.

In order to conquer the Qi country in the north and compete for the hegemony of the Central Plains, he mobilized the people to dig the canal from today's Yangzhou to the northeast, through Sheyang Lake to Huai'an into the Huaihe River, because it passed through Hancheng, so it was named "Hangou".

With a total length of 170 kilometers, it diverted the water of the Yangtze River into the Huai River, becoming the earliest section of the Grand Canal, which was born for water transportation.

In the Warring States Period, a big ditch and a chasm were dug successively, thus communicating the four rivers of Jiang, Huai, He, and Ji.

King Wu then defeated the Qi state at Ailing, and in 482 BC, he led the elite assembly princes in Huangchi to compete with the Jin for hegemony, but the Wu state was destroyed by the Yue State sneak attack.

Although Fucha died, he left behind not only the prototype of Yangzhou, but also the canals are still in use.

Later, the "Sui and Tang Grand Canals" were divided into four sections: Yongji Canal, Tongji Canal, Hangou and Jiangnan River.

Now the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty is the same as that of Emperor Yang of Sui, Luoyang, so Liu Zhi decided to copy the design of this route.

That is, the "Tongji Canal" about 1,000 kilometers long from Luoyang to Qingjiang in Jiangsu Province was dug to directly communicate the traffic between the Yellow River and the Huai River, and the Hangou and Jiangnan Canal were renovated.

The "Yongji Canal", which is about 1,000 kilometers long from Luoyang through Linqing in Shandong Province to Zhuo County in Hebei Province, together with the Guangtong Canal, forms a multi-branched canal system.

Then the "Jiangnan Canal" with a length of about 400 kilometers from Zhenjiang in Jiangsu Province to Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province was excavated, and the ditch was renovated at the same time.

In this way, the river between Luoyang and Hangzhou, which is more than 1,400 kilometers long, can be directly connected to ships.

The amount of work in these sections is very huge, and Liu Zhi has ordered someone to draw a map for the ministers to see.

With the drawings, the benefits of the Grand Canal are simply clear at a glance, which is very touching.

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