In Zhao Yuji's previous life, it was reported that the Cao Canal from Xiangyi to the Han River was opened in the Song Dynasty, which was regarded by experts as the earliest attempt of China's South-to-North Water Diversion Project, and also provided extremely valuable experience for the current South-to-North Water Diversion Project. And after the investigation of relevant experts, the middle line of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project was finally determined, and the direction of this section is basically the same as the direction of the Cao Canal dug in the Song Dynasty, and the distance between the two is only 100 meters. At this point, he remembered the past, and thought that this line might be available, so he asked.

"My subordinates know about this, but the Xianghan Cao Canal is not available...... Jiang Zongjie stepped forward, and quickly found a map from a stack of maps, and pointed out the explanation, so that His Majesty would know the details.

It turned out that as early as after Zhao Kuangyin set the capital of Bianjing, he solved the problem of food for the army in order to solve the problem of food for the army, and first dredged the Bianhe River, Cai River and other rivers, and regarded Caoyun as an economic lifeline. At that time, the Bianhe River was the main inland waterway connecting the Yellow River, the Huai River and the Yangtze River, but it could only solve the problem of grain and material transportation in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the grain and materials in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the Han River and the Xiangjiang River had to be transferred to Kyoto by the canal through the Jianghuai River, which was very inconvenient.

More than ten years later, Taizong succeeded to the throne, and Cao Yun became even more nervous. In the first month of the third year of the Taiping Rejuvenation of the Kingdom, Cheng Neng, the Xijing transshipment envoy, wrote a letter, proposing to build a dam and set a weir from the mouth of Nanyangxia, intercept the Baihe River to divert water to the north, cross the Fangcheng Pass, pass through Shitang, Shahe, Caihe, Suishui, and arrive at Bianjing, the capital division, and connect with the Xiangtan Cao Canal in the south to solve the urgent need of transporting grain and materials from the south to Beijing.

Zhao Guangyi adopted Cheng Neng's suggestion, issued an edict to levy 100,000 migrant workers and officers and soldiers, and spent more than a month of construction, dredged more than 100 miles, passed through Bowang, Luoqu, and Shaozhe Mountain, and arrived in the area of Baligou in the east and west of Fangcheng County. However, at the Fangcheng Pass, the water could not reach due to the gradual elevation of the terrain. It coincided with the continuous heavy rain in the upper reaches of the Baihe River, flash floods, and the stone weir was washed away, and the excavation of the Cao Canal was stopped, so that the project was abandoned halfway.

In the first year of Duangong, Zhao Guangyi decided to dig the Xianghan Cao Canal again to divert the water of the Baihe River to the north, and the project included two major parts, one part was to communicate the water passage between the Han River and the Ru River along the route of the first excavation, and the other part was to dig the Jianghan Cao River that entered the Han River from Jingzhou. The Cao River generally runs from the southwest of Jingmen to Jingzhou City, and enters the Han River through Shayang and Qianjiang Shishikou, but it finally runs aground due to the override.

Therefore, it is a pity that due to the failure of the two excavations, this section of more than 100 miles of Xianghan Cao Canal from Baihe to Baligou became a "semi-pulled" project, and later the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was completed in its entirety, and the Xianghan Canal was soon abandoned. In other words, this route cannot be used at all at present, and the only way to let the naval army participate in the war is to bypass the Yangtze River.

"Your Majesty, my subordinates thought that they could bypass Baishui, although the distance was a little farther, it was more than sixty percent shorter than the voyage into the river." Seeing that the little emperor was full of disappointment, Jiang Zongjie said again.

"Oh, I know that you and Jiang Zhishuai have a deep brotherhood, but you can't abolish your husband for personal reasons!" Zhao Yu listened to the deep groan for a moment, frowned and said. Xianghan Caoqu is now not on the point, but he is also on the mind, if it can be successfully excavated, it is definitely a project that will be praised by future generations, but now it can only be discussed when the Central Plains is recovered in the next day.

"Your Majesty, how dare your subordinates speak presumptuously. Your Majesty, please see that we can first follow the canal from Xuzhou to the Huai River, then go up the river to Rushui, then enter the water after passing Ruyang, turn into the Qin River after arriving at Qinyang, and go down the river to Xiangyang. Jiang Zongjie drew a route on the map.

"Chief Jiang, as far as I know, there is a lot of sediment in the lower reaches of the Qin River, which also hinders shipping, and it may be difficult for large ships to pass!" Ma Duan said.

"Everything you know is what you get from the book, and I not only serve in the Imperial Front Office, but also serve as the official of the Ministry of War, in charge of the map of the world, and know the geography of the rivers in the world." Jiang Zongjie smiled teasingly.

"The north bank of the Han River has less navigational power, and the south bank has more navigable rivers and longer, and most of the rivers pass through the relatively low and gentle mountains, but except for the Muma River and the Moon River beach are less dangerous, there are still many other river beach risks, and the load of the passing ships is small, and it is very difficult to navigate, but it can also be navigated. There are many navigable tributaries in the middle reaches, mainly Tangbai River, Beihe, Nanhe, Manhe, Lihe, Fengle River, Zihe River, Qin River, etc., among them, the Tangbai River route is the longest, and the Beihe, Li River, Fengle River and Zihe River route are extremely short. ”

"Before our army entered Huai, we had already sent people in to find out the geography, draw up atlases, and investigate the water situation of the rivers. In the winter and spring, the Qin River is indeed as said, due to the siltation of sediment, it is difficult to carry large boats. However, in the summer, when the rain increases, the floods of the Yangtze River and the Han River will flow back into the tributaries, often raising the water level downstream, widening the water surface, and lasting for a long time, so that large ships can pass in the summer. ”

"Well, that's good. So we divided our troops into two routes, by land on the western route, and by land. Zhao Yu was very pleased.

"Your Majesty, it is safer to take the waterway, and save some effort, let's go by boat!" Ni Liang listened to the words.

"Not on the way!" Zhao Hao snorted coldly.

"Du Shuai, Your Majesty is going to Yingtianfu Temple, or how about we take the waterway!" Jiang Zongjie whispered.

"Hmph, Ben Shuai wants to accompany His Majesty to worship the temple!" Ni Liang glanced at him and snorted.

"Prepare today, leave tomorrow!" Zhao Yu ignored a few of them and squeezed his eyebrows, and set the time and matter.

A sentence at the top, a broken leg at the bottom. Zhao Hao no longer needs to worry about these little things, but these people below dare not slack off in the slightest. They had to march thousands of miles to Xiangyang, and they had to think not only about safety on the way, but also about food and drink, where to camp, and where to resupply. At the same time, it is necessary to arrange for the garrisons along the route to take action, to clear out the bandits in the places they pass, to expel the enemy rangers, to send out guards in dangerous places, and so on.

Wang De is also a group of small yellow men directing the group, and he does more. This time I went to the Yingtianfu Temple, I couldn't be as low-key as usual, and I had to line up the guard of honor to show the emperor's prestige. As for what clothes to wear, what sacrifices to use, and what music to play in the temple, he had to communicate with the attaché of the Ministry of Rites in advance, and coaxed His Majesty to cooperate with the drill. After a thousand miles to Xiangyang, Wang De needed to think of the items that the emperor needed on the way and prepared them in Xuzhou in advance......

The next day, the emperor drove out of Xuzhou, and Wang Yinglin, as a minister of his entourage, followed His Majesty to Yingtianfu, escorting not only the guard battalion and the personal guard regiment, the baggage brigade, but also the first brigade and cavalry brigade led by Ni Liang, the imperial protector. The Imperial Navy had already set sail last night, heading south along the canal to Shanyang to replenish supplies and then heading directly to Xiangyang. Zhuang Gongcong was appointed as the prefect of Xuzhou, and Liu Zhixue, the commander of the Second Army, was appointed as the envoy of Huaibei Town to preside over the Huaibei military. The remaining three brigades of the Imperial Front Protector Army temporarily stayed in Suzhou to recuperate, replenish new recruits, and assist the local government in forming a state army.

There are 20,000 people in the driving team, winding for several miles, the drums and trumpets before and after echo each other, it can be said that the chariot and the horse Xiaoxiao, the flag is like a forest, the lineup is very spectacular. Zhao Hao's car drove in the middle of the team, with a cavalry brigade in front of him to open the road, a guard brigade on the left and right, and a guard battalion to guard the core area.

The speed of the march was very fast, not only because of the shortly after the end of the war, but also because there were clashes in the surrounding area, resulting in a sparse number of travelers on the road. Also because of the victory in the war, a large number of war horses were captured, so that the imperial front guard army was transformed into mules and horses. Needless to say, cavalry is already standard, and the infantry army has also been given enough horses to march by car, which has increased the speed of marching.

Although all the units were equipped with horses, the horses of the guard battalion and the guard regiment were still hot for the eyes of the others, and they rode not ordinary Mongolian horses, but tall 'yangmar'. Of course, these horses were not exchanged by Zhao Hao's royal ocean-going caravanserais, but were also captured, more precisely from the Mongol Great Khan's personal guard, the Xue Army.

The Mongol expedition to the west obtained many excellent riding horses from Central and West Asia, and as the most important minions of the Great Khans, the war horses ridden by the cowardly Xue army were naturally changed from shotguns to artillery. But these good horses were also hard to come by, and the children of the good commoners could also spend on their booty, and the children of the anointed sorghum needed their noble fathers to spend money on them, and if the money was not enough, they could collect special taxes from the households under their jurisdiction.

At the beginning, because these horses were not easy to come by, the cowardly soldiers of the Xue Army also cherished them very much, and were willing to work hard to train them themselves. As the Mongol army grew more and more spoils, the Great Khans became more and more generous. The cowardly Xue army was given a large amount of arable land and treachery, and they handed over the work of feeding the horses to others. By the time of Kublai Khan, the Yuan Dynasty had established a large number of pastoral superintendents modeled on the model of the Central Plains Dynasty, stocking excellent riding horses collected from all over Eurasia.

With the breeding of corruption, the cowardly Xue's horse-raising talents gradually deteriorated, although they still held the titles of Ahi Tachi and Abe Wuchi, and the specific work was also handed over to the Han and other third-class minions. They only received fodder from the Yuan government, but the work of raising horses was handed over to the herdsmen of the herdsmen. In this Northern Expedition of the Great Song Dynasty, the horse farms set up in the Lianghuai and Huaibei regions were lost, and those war horses fell into the hands of Zhao Yu, and he naturally selected a group of personal guards who first armed themselves.

"What a horse!" As the most advanced means of transportation in this era, Zhao Yu naturally chose a few horses for himself to ride, but for his safety, it was forbidden in disguise, and he was absolutely not allowed to abandon the horse if he could take a car or a boat. And at the moment he can only ride by car, so he can only look at those tall horses with greedy eyes.

"Your Majesty, when the minister was cleaning up the household registration of the newly acquired land, he discovered an interesting thing!" Wang Yinglin, who accompanied the emperor, was traveling in the same car with His Majesty, and when he saw the little emperor's eyes glowing green as he looked at the war horse, he knew his thoughts, and hurriedly found a topic to divert to attract his attention.

"Oh, what's so funny!" Zhao Yu really hit the plan, turned his face and asked with interest.

"Your Majesty, those Jurchens actually refused to change their nationality and insisted that they were the real Han people!" Wang Yinglin said with a smile......