My Imperial Advisor is ChatGPT

Xi'an North Railway Station is one of the largest high-speed railway stations in Asia.

Ying Zheng stood in the enormous waiting hall, looking up at the intricate steel structure on the dome. Although he had been in the modern world for several days, he still felt a profound sense of awe whenever he saw such a magnificent building.

"This roof..." Ying Zheng squinted, giving a professional assessment, "It spans at least a hundred meters. There isn't a single pillar; it's supported entirely by steel beams. The Mohist mechanical arts have certainly been perfected by later generations."

"Brother Zheng, this is called a space grid structure." Little G's voice echoed in his mind. "It's much more powerful than the Mo family's wooden bird."

Ying Zheng nodded and straightened his Zhongshan suit (he had changed into modern clothes to keep a low profile, though he looked like a retired cadre). He held a red train ticket in his hand, which read: **G666, Xi'an North to Beijing West, Business Class, Car 01, Seat 01A**.

"Beijing?" Ying Zheng looked at the train ticket. "Where is that? Ji, the former capital of the Yan state?"

Yes, that's the current capital.

"The capital..." Ying Zheng mused, "Wasn't Xianyang good enough? Why move the capital? Was it because of bad feng shui?"

"...Brother Zheng, this is a long story. Mainly because there are a lot of people there, and... it's close to the Great Wall."

"It's good to be close to the Great Wall," Ying Zheng agreed. "The emperor guarding the nation's gate has a touch of my former style."

The ticket gate is open.

Following others' example, Ying Zheng placed his ID card (a "temporary identity certificate" obtained by Xiao G through some means, named Zhao Zheng) in the sensor area.

"drop!"

The gate opened.

Ying Zheng strode in, his steps steady and his aura commanding, just as he had when he inspected the Epang Palace. The hurried travelers around him instinctively parted to make way for him, as if forced back by some invisible pressure.

Upon arriving at the platform, a sleek, silver-white train lay quietly on the tracks. Its long body resembled a reclining dragon.

"This is the high-speed rail?" Ying Zheng reached out and touched the body of the train. He was quite satisfied with the cold, smooth metallic feel. "The paint is even brighter than my bronze chariots. And... there are no horses."

"Fully electric drive, speed 350 km/h," Xiao G explained. "From Xi'an to Beijing, it only takes a little over four hours."

"Four hours?" Ying Zheng was stunned.

He remembered that when he traveled the country, from Xianyang to Jicheng, even in the fastest six-horse carriage, traveling along the Qin Straight Road, it still took more than half a month. And the journey was so bumpy that his bones felt like they were going to fall apart.

"Four hours...that's two hours," Ying Zheng muttered to himself. "This speed...even the immortals flying through the clouds couldn't match this, could they?"

Once inside the car, Ying Zheng found his business class seat.

This is a red leather seat that is spacious and comfortable, and the angle can be adjusted via buttons, and it can even be fully reclined.

"This chair is nice." Ying Zheng sat down and pressed the armrest. "It's much softer than my dragon throne. I'll have the Gongshu family make one for me too."

The train started slowly and then accelerated rapidly.

The scenery outside the window began to rush past. At first, I could still make out the pillars on the platform, but soon they became blurry lines.

Ying Zheng looked out the window, a hint of daze flashing in his eyes.

He recalled the scene of building the Straight Road. Hundreds of thousands of laborers cleaved through mountains and rocks on the Loess Plateau, using roasted loess to compact the roadbed, carving out a straight road through the mountains and rivers. It was the artery of the Qin Dynasty, the pride of the empire.

Now, that artery has been transformed into steel, into electricity, and into speed.

"Little G".

【exist. 】

"This carriage is going so fast, won't it be bumpy?" Ying Zheng asked with some concern. "Back in the day, when I rode in a carriage, I was so nauseous that I felt like I was going to faint."

"Brother Zheng, you'll see once you try it," Little G suggested. "You can put something on the table to stand it up."

Ying Zheng took out a Qin Banliang coin (the real gold ingot) from his pocket. He carefully placed it upright on the small table in front of him.

The train's speed had already soared to 300 kilometers per hour. The trees outside the window flashed by like lightning.

However, the gold coin stood there steadily, without moving an inch.

Ying Zheng stared at the gold cake for a full minute without blinking.

"As stable as Mount Tai." Ying Zheng took a deep breath, his eyes filled with disbelief. "This roadbed... how flat must it be? These rails... how straight must they be? If there were even the slightest error, at this speed, the train would have overturned long ago."

He turned to look out the window at the bridges and tunnels that flashed by.

"When you encounter mountains, you build roads; when you encounter rivers, you build bridges." Ying Zheng exclaimed, "Back then, how many valleys did I fill in to build the Straight Road? And now, you're building bridges in the sky and drilling tunnels underground. The scale of this project... it's probably more than ten Great Walls!"

"We're a construction powerhouse, aren't we?" Little G said proudly. "These are all skills passed down from our ancestors. From Dujiangyan to Zheng Guo Canal, and then to the Great Wall, the people of this land are best at repairing the earth with the earth."

Ying Zheng smiled; it was a smile of satisfaction.

"What a magnificent name, 'infrastructure maniac'! I like this title. It seems my descendants haven't disgraced me."

Just as Ying Zheng was filled with emotion, a young man sitting next to him caught his attention.

He was a boy with thick-rimmed glasses and messy hair. He was holding a laptop, his fingers flying across the keyboard, displaying a complex engineering drawing on the screen.

Although Ying Zheng couldn't understand the symbols, he recognized the shape.

"Is that a bridge?" Ying Zheng suddenly asked.

The young man was startled, took off his headphones, and looked at the imposing "old man" with a bewildered expression.

"Ah? It's...it's a bridge." The young man was a little nervous. "This is my graduation project, the design drawings for the piers of a cross-sea bridge."

"Across the sea?" Ying Zheng's eyes lit up. "How far?"

"About... fifty kilometers."

"Fifty kilometers!" Ying Zheng gasped.

Fifty kilometers, that's a hundred li. A hundred li at sea, relying on a bridge instead of a boat?

"If Xu Fu had known about this thing, he wouldn't have lied to me back then, saying the waves were too big," Ying Zheng muttered to himself, then pointed to a structure on the blueprints. "Why are there so many piles underneath?"

Seeing the old man's interest, the young man explained, "These are deep-sea foundation piles. Because the seabed is soft, we have to drive steel pipe piles into the rock layer for stability, sometimes more than 100 meters deep."

"More than a hundred meters..." Ying Zheng imagined that depth, "And what about the waves? The waves at sea can smash a warship to pieces."

"So we used a cable-stayed structure," the young man said, pointing to the lines, "to distribute the weight of the bridge deck onto the towers, like... like carrying a load. And we also used dampers to counteract the swaying during typhoons."

Ying Zheng listened intently. Although he didn't understand modern mechanics, he understood "balance."

"Brilliant!" Ying Zheng pointed to the tower on the blueprint. "It's like my powerful crossbow; when the bow arm is stressed and the string is taut, the arrow can fly steadily. You've applied this principle to the bridge."

The young man paused for a moment, then his eyes lit up: "Sir, you know your stuff! The principle is indeed similar to that of a crossbow! It's called prestressing!"

"Prestressed..." Ying Zheng pondered the word. "A good word. When I was making the Qin crossbow, in order to increase its range, I had the craftsmen make the bow arm into a composite structure, with a layer of ox tendon in the middle. It seems that this principle has not changed in thousands of years."

The two of them actually started chatting. They talked about bridges and materials, cement and steel.

The young man became increasingly surprised as they talked. He discovered that although this "old man" spoke fluent ancient language and was not very familiar with modern terms, his understanding of engineering structures was astonishingly profound. He could often pinpoint the key stress points on the drawings and even offer some highly constructive suggestions for modification (such as increasing redundancy to prevent "once-in-a-millennium" storms).

"Sir, what did you do before?" the young man couldn't help but ask. "Chief engineer?"

Ying Zheng smiled slightly and took a sip of the hot tea brought by the waiter.

"I... I used to be a construction foreman," Ying Zheng said calmly. "I repaired several roads, built several houses, and even erected a wall."

"Build a wall?" The young man thought for a moment. "You mean... the Great Wall?"

"Pretty much," Ying Zheng waved his hand. "That's from the old imperial calendar. Modern technology is far superior to what it was back then. Seeing that you can build such a cross-sea bridge puts my mind at ease."

The train crossed the Yellow River.

Ying Zheng looked at the galloping yellow dragon outside the window, his eyes becoming deep.

Back then, he stood on the banks of the Yellow River, watching his army cross the river and destroy Zhao, how spirited he was! Now, steel bridges span the Yellow River, and trains roar past as if on flat ground.

"Little G".

【exist. 】

"When I standardized weights and measures, it was to ensure that carts were of the same width. Now it seems that you have not only achieved the goal of standardizing cart widths, but also achieved 'harmony of hearts'."

[Are our hearts aligned?]

"Look," Ying Zheng said, pointing to the display screen in the carriage, which was scrolling through news reports—an earthquake had occurred in a certain area, and rescue teams and supplies from all over the country were rushing to the scene via high-speed rail and airplanes.

"When one place is in trouble, help comes from all sides. This was very difficult to achieve in my time. The six states had just been unified, and people's hearts were not united. The people of Chu hated the people of Qin, and the people of Zhao resented the people of Qin. I built the Straight Road not only for transporting troops, but also to enable people from all over the country to move around, get to know each other, and become one family."

Ying Zheng watched the news footage, his eyes gleaming.

"Now, you have achieved it. No matter where you are from, you can get to the other side in a few hours by taking this car. You will eat the same food, speak the same language, and use the same money (mobile payment). This is the 'unification' I have always dreamed of."

He turned to look at the young man who was still revising the blueprints.

"Young man."

"Hey, sir."

"Repair this bridge properly." Ying Zheng patted his shoulder. "Once it's repaired, let me... let everyone go and see the scenery across the sea."

The young man nodded vigorously: "Don't worry, sir! This is a key national project; the quality is absolutely guaranteed! I guarantee it won't collapse for a hundred years!"

"A hundred years?" Ying Zheng laughed. "My Great Wall has stood for two thousand years. You should have some ambition and build one that can last a thousand years."

The young man scratched his head and laughed, "Okay! I'll listen to you! It'll be in your hands for a thousand years!"

The train slowly pulled into Beijing West Railway Station.

Ying Zheng stood up and straightened his collar.

"We've arrived," Little G reminded him. "Brother Zheng, we've reached the old capital of Yan."

Ying Zheng stepped out of the carriage and stood on the platform, looking at the bustling crowd around him. Everyone was in a hurry, yet full of energy.

"This place is even more bustling than Xianyang," Ying Zheng exclaimed.

He stepped out of the station and saw the magnificent city. Skyscrapers stood side by side, and overpasses coiled like giant dragons.

"Little G".

【exist. 】

"My incognito visit this time was worthwhile." Ying Zheng looked into the distance. "I saw my straight roads transformed into high-speed railways, my Great Wall transformed into a spiritual totem, and my people living good lives. I, the 'First Emperor,' can now retire in peace."

"Brother Zheng, you were already retired," Little G quipped. "What are you planning to do when you get back? Keep growing potatoes?"

"Grow potatoes?" Ying Zheng shook his head. "No. When I get back, I will summon the Mohists and the Gongshu School and show them the blueprints I drew in the modern era."

He pulled out a stack of sketches he had drawn on hotel stationery from his pocket—sketches of a high-speed train's streamlined front and a cable-stayed structure for a cross-sea bridge.

"I want to build this!" Ying Zheng pointed to the blueprints, his eyes burning with ambition. "Although we can't build an electric one right now, we can build a steam-powered one! I want the Qin Dynasty's trains to run at 350 kilometers per hour! I want the Qin Dynasty's bridges to cross the East Sea and reach Fusang!"

"...Brother Zheng, a steam engine running at 350 kilometers per hour would explode."

"Then build one that can't be blown up!" Ying Zheng waved his sleeve and strode forward. "Let's go! Let's see that Forbidden City! I heard it's the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties? I want to see which is more magnificent, my Epang Palace or my Forbidden City!"

In the setting sun, Ying Zheng's shadow was stretched very long.

He was no longer the lonely emperor, but an "old boy" full of curiosity and dreams.

Because he knew that in any era, as long as there is a road, there is hope. As long as you dare to dream, there is no destination you cannot reach.