The videos I watched became popular in ancient times

Chapter 306: South-to-North Water Diversion Project of the Century
After seeing a series of super projects in later generations, ancient people from all dynasties were filled with emotion.

They are deeply shocked by every super project, not to mention the fact that so many infrastructure projects have been built in just a few decades.

You know, when New China was just founded, the whole country was in ruins.

But such extraordinary achievements were achieved in such a short period of time. I have to say that the hard work of future generations admires them.

Ying Zheng: The only super project that our Great Qin can rival with future generations is the Great Wall.

In order to defend against enemies on the frontier, he ordered nationwide mobilization to build the Great Wall.

Although the construction of the Great Wall is far less difficult than the super projects of later generations, in terms of grandeur and grandeur, it is not inferior to those of later generations.

When he thought that the Great Wall was his Great Qin's super project, he couldn't help but feel a little proud.

Even, strictly speaking, Dujiangyan can be regarded as a super project of Da Qin.

Dujiangyan is huge in scale and has benefited thousands of people.

"As a result, almost all river water has dried up, and the groundwater level can drop by one meter per year."

The most fundamental reason is the uneven distribution of water resources across the country.

“In terms of per capita water volume, the thirstiest place in China is not the vast northwest with yellow sand in people’s minds.”

“Until the unlimited energy from nuclear fusion is successful, no one can bear the cost.”

"But some compatriots in the water supply areas feel that they have paid too much for this and have not received anything."

People in the south will encounter continuous rainfall during the rainy season every year, hence the name of the plum rainy season in the south.

More importantly, according to what the anchor said, Dujiangyan still plays an important role until later generations.

Many northern regions, including Shaanxi, are severely short of water.

"It stands to reason that seawater desalination should be used here so close to the sea, but the current cost of seawater desalination is as high as 5 yuan per ton of water, especially the power consumption is too high."

Su Chen also agreed very much with what Qin Shihuang said.

The total length of the east, middle and west trunk lines of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project is 4350 kilometers, and its length and scale can be imagined.

"But our North China Plain, Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and other places."

"Cities giving up future development is an unacceptable price for China's development."

Liu Che: It's a good idea to transfer water from the south to the north. It's a pity that I, a big man, can't do this.

“Countless compatriots in the north who drank clean water felt that this was a great project that changed their lives.”

"The extreme water shortage line according to international standards is 500 per capita, but here it is less than 150."

"Then the only way came, which was to bring fresh water from outside."

This means that Dujiangyan has been benefiting the people for more than two thousand years.

"As we all know, China is a country with vast territory and abundant resources."

From this time span, Dujiangyan can be regarded as a super project.

“And the South floods and is often in distress.”

“If this continues, the entire city will become uninhabitable and unviable.”

"And there are only two solutions, increase revenue and reduce expenditure."

As we all know, people cannot live without water, and the importance of water is self-evident.

"Geological subsidence and ground collapse occur frequently."

"Reducing expenditure means that cities like Beijing and Tianjin must stop expanding and reduce their population, and even a large number of people must move to other places."

"But another fact is that vast China is a country with extremely uneven distribution of water resources."

Almost all capital cities were built near water sources, and the gathering places of the people were also close to water sources.

“There is insufficient water in the north and there are repeated severe droughts.”

"Is the South-to-North Water Diversion really necessary? Does it have advantages or disadvantages?"

"China is not only a vast country with abundant resources, but also has extremely uneven distribution of resources."

"And the second way is to open source, either desalinize seawater or transport water."

The Great Wall is known as the Eight Wonders of the World and is naturally a super project.

But while the south is experiencing heavy downpours, some provinces in the north are experiencing drought and water shortages.

He didn't need to think about why later generations carried out the South-to-North Water Diversion Project.

"To survive, people here use all the above-ground rivers and underground water."

"Some people say that it is just a distribution project for some people to enjoy life at the expense of other people."

In terms of water resources in the country, southern regions such as Guangdong, Guangxi, and Sichuan are the least short of water.

The Great Wall protrudes a long way, and there is a super project that can also be described as long, that is, the South-to-North Water Diversion Project.

"You can feel it from the annual rainfall. The south often has heavy rains, while the north has continuous droughts."

"Some people say that the South-to-North Water Diversion Project is one of the four miracle construction projects in China's thousands-mile history, along with the Great Wall, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and Dujiangyan."

It can be seen that water plays an extremely important role in the development of the capital and the lives of ordinary people.

Once water is scarce, it will inevitably hinder the development of the city, and even population growth will face huge challenges.

The lack of water resources will cause a series of problems, so it is extremely necessary to urgently solve the water stress in the most water-scarce areas.

As Beijing is the capital of future generations, it naturally needs to ensure sufficient water resources.

It is precisely because of this that the South-to-North Water Diversion Project came into being.

To be honest, he is very envious of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project. After all, Chang'an is also a water-scarce area.

But he also knew that with Dahan's current capabilities, it was impossible to build the South-to-North Water Diversion Project.

“Although the Yellow River is China’s mother river, the South-to-North Water Diversion Project mainly transports water resources from the Yangtze River.”

"Because the Yellow River has only 550 billion cubic meters of runoff per year, but the Yangtze River has 9600 billion cubic meters of runoff per year, and the water quality of the Yangtze River is much clearer than that of the Yellow River."

"So we gave up the Yellow River, which is closest to water-scarce provinces, and mobilized resources from the Yangtze River basin, which is farther away."

"If water from the Yangtze River can be transferred across 1000 kilometers to North China, there is hope that the problem will be solved."

"However, it is extremely difficult to build a waterway that spans more than 1000 kilometers in a straight line. The issues involved in immigration, mountain development, environment, site selection, etc. are extremely huge."

“After the South-to-North Water Diversion Plan was proposed, countless experts and scholars throughout China spent their entire lives demonstrating and designing it.”

"Construction didn't officially start until the end of 2002, and it took a full 1952 years from 2002 to 50 to prepare."

"And until now in 2020, only the east and middle lines have been put into use."

"It can be said that this is a great project that has spanned half a century and may even last a century."

"First of all, let's talk about the eastern front. In five words, water flows to higher places."

"The 1785-kilometer east-line project starts from Yangzhou, Jiangsu, and ends in Tianjin and Shandong."

"However, the south bank of the Yellow River is as much as 40 meters higher than the starting point, which means the water will flow higher."

"In order to achieve this, a total of 13 levels and 160 giant water pumps were built along the way to pump these precious fresh water level by level to the North China Plain."

“Only the first phase of the east line project extracts as much water as more than 600 West Lakes every year.”

"The middle line project has only one water pumping station, which transports water 1432 kilometers away."

"This place is inseparable from a great dam, the Danjiangkou Dam, known as Asia's Tianchi."

"Maybe it is not as famous as the Three Gorges Dam, but its significance is by no means inferior to the Three Gorges."

"This is the intersection of the Han River and the Dan River, with an inflow of nearly 400 billion cubic meters of water every year."

Xu Guangqi: There is abundant groundwater in the North China Plain. With the ability of future generations, it should be no problem to develop groundwater.

He had contacted some water conservancy officials and knew that Beijing's underground water resources were extremely rich.

The South-to-North Water Diversion Project in later generations will be huge in scale. Diverting water from the Yangtze River to the north will definitely use a lot of manpower, material, financial and energy.

He was wondering why future generations would not draw water from the ground. It must be easy to do so with the abilities of future generations.

After thinking for a moment, he roughly thought of the reason.

Perhaps most importantly, excessive use of groundwater can cause harm, such as causing the ground to sink.

After years of groundwater extraction, groundwater levels will continue to decline.

Once the groundwater is gone, the soil layer will be compacted, resulting in a reduction in thickness.

As a result, the ground will inevitably subside. It will also cause other problems, such as building tilt, wall cracking, etc., which will become safety hazards.

As the capital of Beijing, once the ground drops, it will inevitably be a disaster.

Also, when groundwater is over-exploited, the places where the water level originally dropped become hollow-like.

If supplies cannot fill the gap, it creates opportunities for seawater intrusion.

As a result, seawater intrusion will lead to salinization of groundwater freshwater.

The more seawater intrudes, the greater the degree of salinization of freshwater.

As a result, precious water resources will be destroyed.

It can be seen that groundwater cannot be overexploited.

In other words, water resources in the north are so scarce that it is completely unfeasible to rely solely on groundwater.

There is no shortage of water in the south, so groundwater is rarely exploited.

There is also ample opportunity for groundwater to be recharged.

For example, rainfall recharge and river recharge, for which the south, which has abundant water resources, will naturally not worry.

However, the problem of water shortage in the north has always existed. In order to solve the problem of water shortage, groundwater has been exploited to accelerate development.

After all, no matter how much water there is in the south, water from far away cannot quench thirst nearby, so groundwater is being exploited frantically.

Since the south has sufficient water resources, it can bring sufficient water resources to the north.

Therefore, the South-to-North Water Diversion is very useful. It can not only bring water resources to the north, but also improve the problem of groundwater extraction in the north.

When the north has sufficient water resources, there is no need to exploit large amounts of groundwater.

It can be said that the South-to-North Water Diversion Project is indeed very important. For this reason, the existence of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project is really necessary.

However, this is a situation that future generations will face, and the Ming Dynasty does not have such a crisis yet.

"In 2012, the Danjiangkou Dam was raised to 176 meters."

"The water storage level was raised to 170 meters, and the final water level was more than 100 meters higher than in Beijing."

"So there is almost no need for any water pumps, and the water here can go all the way north to Beijing."

"However, the biggest problem faced by this method of automatically transporting water based on water level differences is that it cannot use existing waterways, which means that more than 1400 kilometers of waterways need to be constructed from scratch."

"In this great project that changed the world, the Chinese have created countless miracles in the world."

"For example, in order to pass through the Yellow River, the underpass tunnel built is 50 meters deep and has an inner diameter of 16 meters."

"You can put an entire 16-story building inside, and the TBM drilled it for more than 500 days."

"Each section of the U-shaped water tank in Henan weighs 1200 tons, which is equivalent to lifting three Harmony trains."

"And these incredible and great projects are only part of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project."

"The South-to-North Water Diversion Project is diverting drinking water, so water quality has become a crucial part."

"In order to ensure that the water remains of high quality after traveling more than 1400 kilometers, almost all highly polluting enterprises in the Danjiangkou water source have been shut down."

"More than 100 sewage treatment plants and 100 garbage treatment plants have been built."

"Polluting companies along the entire project have almost been shut down, and countless sewage treatment projects are scattered along it."

"In addition, due to the rise in the water level of the Danjiangkou Reservoir, more than 34 compatriots near Danjiangkou have made huge sacrifices and had to leave the land where they have grown up for generations and immigrate to various parts of the country."

"There are also other behind-the-scenes projects such as the cultural relics conservation work in which people raised the entire palace 15 meters to protect cultural relics protection units."

"It can be said that the South-to-North Water Diversion is not just about building canals, but an extremely huge project involving countless aspects."

"In December 2014, the middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project was officially opened."

"Clean drinking water from the Danjiangkou Reservoir flows from Henan to North China."

"By 2020, water will be transported for more than 2000 days in total, and the water transport will reach 300 billion cubic meters."

"Hundreds of millions of people have benefited along the way, especially compatriots in North China. They have bid farewell to unimaginable bitter alkaline water and can feel the sweetness of clean water."

“It also makes these cities safe and opens up the road to development again.”

Zhu Di: If our strength did not allow it, I would also like to carry out a south-to-north water diversion project to solve the water shortage problem in North China.

Being from Beijing, he naturally knows very well what the water resources in Beijing are like.

Although Beijing in this era was far less water-stressed than in later generations, he also hoped to transfer a large amount of water resources to the north through the South-to-North Water Diversion.

The reason for this is not to solve the drinking water problem in Beijing, but to improve the grain harvest problem in the northern region.

Due to the lack of water in the north, droughts often occur, resulting in serious reductions in grain production.

If water resources from the Yangtze River are introduced to the north through the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, it will certainly be able to irrigate a large amount of farmland, thus greatly increasing food production.

But he also knew that it would be impossible to carry out the South-to-North Water Diversion Project in Daming.

The amount of work is so huge, not to mention the financial resources consumed are astronomical.

If he forcibly recruits ordinary people to carry out large-scale construction projects, I am afraid he will end up like Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty when he built the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

"The project currently costs more than 2500 billion yuan in total. If calculated based on 100 years of use, it will cost more than 20 billion yuan every year."

“Based on the amount of water, the cost per ton of water is only 2 cents, which is extremely affordable compared to seawater desalination.”

"Of course, while our compatriots in North China are benefiting, we must not forget our compatriots in Hubei, Henan and other places."

"They left their homes, they divided their own water sources, they closed their factories, and used their dedication to help compatriots thousands of miles away who they had never met."

"But in fact, it is far more than just these compatriots who are making silent contributions."

"In order for the entire motherland to continue to take off, many people are making silent contributions."

"Sichuan has shared its electricity, the Northeast has shared its food, the iron mines in the northwest, the labor force in the central region, the coal mines in Shanxi, the non-ferrous metals in Yunnan, and of course the clear water of the Yangtze River."

"So not only is there the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, we also have great projects such as the West-to-East Gas Transmission, the North-to-South Coal Transmission, the West-to-East Electricity Transmission, and the North-to-South Grain Transmission Project."

"So every compatriot on every inch of China's land is sharing and enjoying the resources of compatriots across the country."

"And this is just because our country is a country with extremely uneven distribution of natural resources, but the Chinese people have never asked for a savior when encountering difficulties, but rely on their own nation."

"When the sky leaks, we, Nuwa, will mend it."

"When the water comes, we, Dayu, control the water."

"When the East China Sea floods, fill it up."

"If you are exposed to the sun, let the sun shine down."

"The distribution is uneven, so we build countless great projects to distribute it evenly."

"No one can say whether the South-to-North Water Diversion Project is right or wrong now. It will take hundreds or even thousands of years to evaluate this great project."

"For example, the Great Wall built by Qin Shihuang 2000 years ago."

"If you ask the people who were doing corvee work at that time, they would definitely say it was the worst project in the world."

"But if you ask those countless compatriots who were protected by the Great Wall 1000 years ago, they will tell you that it is the greatest project in the world."

"But if you ask modern people after 2000, it is just a historical relic with no reality and only commemorative value."

"All in all, no project involving hundreds of millions of people is without any drawbacks."

The northern people of all dynasties were undoubtedly the most envious of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project that was launched in later generations.

Diverting water from the Yangtze River in the south to the north is a feat they can't even imagine.

There is a serious water shortage in the north. This has been a problem since ancient times, and the people there have nothing to do about it.

They have envied the people in the south countless times for their abundant water resources, which make their food output far exceed that in the north.

How great it would be if there could be a South-to-North Water Diversion Project in their era!
Not only can it solve their drinking water problem, but it can also greatly increase their food production.

But then, they all showed bitterness on their faces.

The South-to-North Water Diversion project is huge and consumes countless manpower, material and financial resources.

If their current emperor really wants to build the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, it will undoubtedly be a disaster for their people.

By then, I'm afraid people all over the country will rebel.

After all, countless people died during the construction of Emperor Yang of Sui's Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

The South-to-North Water Diversion Project is obviously bigger and bigger than the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and countless people will definitely die by then, which is something the people don't want.

(End of this chapter)