Unknown Knight

Looking at the camel caravans traveling across the isthmus, Aix looked at the map in his hand again and couldn't help but sigh at the importance of this place. If a canal was dug here to connect the two sea areas, the importance of this place would increase exponentially.

However, it seems that this idea can only be put off for the future. With Berbera's current manpower and material resources, digging such a canal will not only consume huge manpower and material resources, but will also increase the covetousness of external forces for no reason. He should make plans in this regard after he unifies the continent of Calradia.

But this place is so important that we have to guard against it. According to the intelligence, the enemy troops had entered Berbera from this isthmus in the past. The width of more than ten miles is not too long. Aix has been considering whether to build a defensive fortification here first. However, his energy is now mainly focused on how to return to the Calradia continent, so it seems that this idea can only be left for the future.

However, subsequent developments forced him to re-plan and put the construction of canals and fortifications on the agenda.

The reason was that when he was transporting the Kirk ship across the isthmus, there was a big difference between some things imagined and actually done, and you had to actually do it to get the most realistic situation.

Aix had seen examples in history books of towing ships across the isthmus by land. For example, in the famous Battle of Constantinople, Mehmed II used land transportation to transport ships across the Golden Horn, gaining the advantage of attacking from both sides and ultimately winning the battle. Aix had also seen similar plots in film and television works, so he thought it was an easy task, thinking it was nothing more than putting a little more oil on the logs, but that was not the case in reality.

After he struggled to transport a sampan weighing more than ten tons to the opposite bay, he thought this method was indeed feasible, but he suffered a major setback when transporting the cog.

A cog usually weighs at least 100 tons. Ix thought it would be easier with more people, so he mobilized nearly a thousand people to tow the ship. The side of the ship collapsed several times before the ship was finally towed ashore. However, not long after they moved forward, there was a loud clatter, and this cog, which was in the best condition and was second-hand, broke directly in the middle and fell apart.

Unwilling to give up, Aix used Nana to make calculations again. After Nana's preliminary calculations, it was almost impossible for him to transport the Kirk ship to the other side of the isthmus more than ten miles away with his current technology and abilities.

This made Aix somewhat discouraged. If he could not transport the kerk with the largest loading capacity to the other side of the isthmus, then his plan of transporting troops on a large scale would be just a joke. A sampan alone was not enough for long voyages, let alone for carrying a large number of troops and supplies and food for an expedition.

Just when he was at a loss, James saw that his master was in trouble and took the initiative to remind him:

"Sir, we may not be able to complete a wide canal at the moment, but we only need to dig a channel that is eight meters wide. This will not be a very large amount of work. Then, we can take out the ballast stones in the Kirk ship and ensure that all the large ships can be transported to the opposite bay."

James' words enlightened Axe. When the underground drinking water channel was being dug in Fort Standstill, Axe was only responsible for the initial work. James was in charge of directing the construction for most of the project. He had some idea of ​​the workload of large-scale construction. His words brought Axe a different perspective.

Aix's impression of canals was that they were at least several dozen meters wide. By that calculation, digging a canal was indeed a huge project that was difficult to complete at present. However, if one only dug a canal that was less than ten meters wide, it would not be a big project. Besides, a cog ship was generally about eight meters wide, which was enough for an empty ship to pass through.

The narrowest part of the entire isthmus is less than six kilometers, with two salt lakes hundreds of meters wide in the middle. The highest altitude is less than five meters, and most of the soil is loess and sand that are easy to dig. Just from the perspective of earthwork, digging a canal that is eight meters wide at the top, four meters wide at the bottom, and four meters deep requires a total earthwork volume of less than 150,000 cubic meters.

He now governs Fort Standing and the city of Zion, with a total population of about 150,000. There are nearly 100,000 young and strong people who can work. If he mobilizes 30,000 to 40,000 people to dig, each person only needs to dig five cubic meters of soil, and half a month will be enough.

Previously, Aix had planned to build a defensive fortification on the isthmus. Inspired by his experience in digging moats and using the excavated earth to build cities, he decided to kill two birds with one stone this time. He piled all the excavated earth directly on the other side and used it to build a high dam. Later on, he would slowly use local materials to build a rammed earth wall on the dam, supplemented by several earthen forts. Wouldn't that be an insurmountable defensive fortification?

In addition, this canal is not only used this time. Although a 100-ton cog cannot carry cargo, ordinary sampans can pass through it without any problem. Two sampans can be placed side by side, which has a very good shipping effect.

Even if a large ship coming from a long voyage wants to cross the Isthmus, it can transfer the cargo to a sampan here, and then have the empty boat towed by trackers across the Isthmus, and finally load the cargo from the sampan back onto the large ship.

Aix only needs to send troops to guard both sides to collect river crossing tolls from passing ships, which can also increase additional income for the local area.

As for the future, the territory can use the tolls collected to dig a wider canal, and it will not bring additional burden to the territory. But that is a later story. Isn't there a lot of slaves in the territory? Just let them dig slowly first.

They acted as soon as they said it. The territory of Aix was different from other places. Its ruling power was more centralized and its mobilization capacity was amazing. Soon, together with the people from Fort Standing and Zion City, nearly 50,000 people were mobilized to come to the construction.

The main reason is that although most people in the territory have been allocated land assets and are very motivated, many people do not have much food stored, and they still need to eat before the crops on the land mature.

Although digging the canal was hard work, the prophet would pay five copper coins for every cubic meter of soil dug and transported to the other side to pile it up. It was not such easy money. This method of work-for-relief was just the right way to solve the food problem for many people.

All in all, the entire project would only cost less than 80,000 gold coins, and once these gold coins were in the hands of the subjects, they would be used to purchase the stored grain in the warehouse from Aix, and would eventually return to him.

Not only that, fearing that there would not be enough food, Aix also asked Rogge to contact their Ogbai family and purchase a large amount of relatively cheap food from the Gronia continent by sea, so as to make adequate preparations for the great expedition in the near future.

Although some sections during construction were made of sandstone and the canal had to detour two more kilometers, because enough people were involved and everyone was paid by piece, they were very motivated. After spending nearly 100,000 gold coins, this pocket-sized canal, which was about ten meters wide and four meters deep, was opened more than a month later.