Sky Curtain: The Overlord Charges into Battle, Shocking Emperors of All Dynasties

"A miracle! This is a miracle!"

"How is that possible? This doesn't make sense!"

"Does this mean everyone in future generations will be a god?"

To the ancients living under the vast sky, building such a long bridge amidst the mountains and high in the clouds was simply beyond human capability.

Only giants could stand on both banks and build the bridge towers and deck one by one, creating this magnificent bridge that reaches to the heavens.

"Mountains bow their heads, rivers give way—what a magnificent sight!"

"In later generations, they were actually able to subdue mountains and rivers?"

In ancient times, many myths and legends were passed down.

For example, Nuwa patching up the sky, Jingwei filling the sea, and Yu the Great controlling the floods.

These myths and legends, passed down to this day, constitute the core of the Chinese nation's spirit of fighting against nature and persevering through setbacks.

For example, the world-ending flood mentioned in all the world's myths and legends.

In Western mythology, humans built Noah's Ark, while in Chinese mythology, there is the legend of Nuwa mending the sky.

The different choices in the two myths reveal the different underlying characteristics of the two peoples.

When faced with difficulties and obstacles, the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation have followed one after another, firmly believing that human will can overcome nature.

The West, on the other hand, places its hopes on ethereal and elusive religious deities.

For example, in Huajiang, during the Chongzhen era and the late Qing Dynasty, there were several attempts to build bridges in this area.

Ultimately, due to technological limitations, they had to abandon the idea of ​​building a stone bridge and instead build a suspension bridge.

The ancients were never afraid to try to solve problems.

When encountering mountains, open roads; when encountering rivers, build bridges.

If one generation can't solve it, then two or three generations will. One day, the mountains will bow down and the rivers will change course.

Just like the Foolish Old Man Who Moved Mountains, his descendants will continue endlessly.

One day, we will move the mountains in front of us, instead of moving to another place.

What puzzled the ancients most about the bridge was why it didn't collapse and remained intact despite having no support underneath.

The Huajiang Canyon Bridge in Guizhou is the world's highest bridge, and only China has the capability to build one world's highest bridge after another.

The bridge deck is a full 625 meters above the water. At that height, even if you jumped off the bridge, it would take a full 11 seconds to land.

Why did we build such a bridge, and how did we bring it to life in less than four years?

Wait, how many meters?

625 meters?

What kind of unit of altitude is this?

The ancients were baffled. There was no unit called "meter" in ancient times; only "foot" and "zhang" existed. Furthermore, the conversion of "foot" and "zhang" into modern units varied across different dynasties.

However, Tianmu quickly and considerately converted the units to units they understood.

It is approximately two hundred zhang (approximately 600 meters) and two thousand chi (approximately 1,000 feet).

This number made many people rub their eyes in disbelief.

Although the scene in the sky is set among mountains, its specific altitude is not shown.

They initially thought that nearly a thousand feet was already a huge overestimation.

In ancient China, the tallest recorded building was the Yongning Temple Pagoda, built during the Northern Wei Dynasty. It was over 400 feet tall (40 zhang), which translates to approximately 137 meters in modern units.

No building in subsequent historical records has ever matched its height.

Tang Dynasty

Li Bai laughed heartily, then elegantly poured a cup of wine into his mouth.

"A towering building a hundred feet high, could one pluck the stars from the sky?"

"And what about that thousand-foot-high bridge?"

He had climbed tall buildings and seen the magnificent scenery of the Tang Dynasty from above.

I thought a 100-foot-tall building was already extremely tall.

But what appeared in later generations was not a thousand-foot-tall building, but a thousand-foot-tall bridge.

Compared to its height, the construction time mentioned later caused an even greater sensation in various dynasties.

"How is this possible? Such a massive project would take at least a decade, let alone several decades, to complete. How could it possibly be finished in just four years?!"

"The Great Wall of the Qin Dynasty was built on the foundation of previous Great Walls, and it took another five years to complete the main part on this basis. After that, it was built intermittently for nearly ten more years!"

"When Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty built the Great Wall, he conscripted able-bodied men, and nearly a million of them died."

"Such a massive project, completed in such a short time—who knows how many lives it will cost!"

Thinking about all this, and imagining that millions, even tens of millions, of people in future generations might lose their lives because of this bridge, Li Shimin's eyes couldn't help but redden again.

As for the purpose of the bridge, how could he, as the Emperor of Ma, not know?

Its primary purpose is to strengthen control over local areas, making it much easier to mobilize troops and transport military supplies whenever possible.

For a V-shaped canyon, crossing it from a height of 625 meters would mean crossing a distance of over 1,400 meters between the two banks.

Even using the world's tallest steel beam bridge is clearly not tall enough; the arch bridge with the longest span can only be built halfway up a mountain; and the cable-stayed bridge with the longest span is still not tall enough.

[If you want to build a bridge at this location, a suspension bridge with such a large span is the only option.]

As the narration began, bridge designs appeared one after another on the screen, gradually unfolding across the Huajiang Canyon.

However, the ancients living under the sky could clearly see at a glance that the height of these bridges was far less than the height of the Huajiang Canyon.

However, these different types of bridges, and their structures, especially cable-stayed bridges and suspension bridges, provided a great deal of inspiration to officials skilled in water conservancy.

"A steel-framed bridge?"

"Isn't it wasteful to build bridges with steel?"

"Or is it that future steel production will be sufficient to support the construction of the bridge?"

"How could the ropes on a suspension bridge possibly support such a massive weight!"

Some self-righteous individuals, who consider themselves omniscient, have been ruthless in raising questions. In their view, this is just like previous films, fabricated by later generations.

They had already deduced from the various messages conveyed by the previous celestial phenomena that the future would be no more than seven or eight hundred years away from their Great Song Dynasty.

The Song Dynasty was also seven or eight hundred years after the Wei and Jin Dynasties. Both periods were seven or eight hundred years apart.

How much could change in the future? Could the world have changed completely in seven or eight hundred years?

That's ridiculous!!

But how many steps are involved in building a bridge that is the tallest and has the longest span in the world?

It's very simple, just three steps!

First, build two sturdy bridge towers, then lay and secure two strong main cables, and finally use slings to hold up the sufficiently stable main beams.

Congratulations on building a suspension bridge!

Uh-huh!

The ancients nodded in agreement upon hearing this.

So it's that simple... my foot!

That sounds so easy! What about the materials? How will the bridge towers be erected? And where will we find sturdy main cables?!

Well, it's not that simple.

To ensure the 262-meter-high bridge tower stands firmly on the mountaintop, in addition to finding a stable mountain, 24 massive concrete piles had to be driven deep into the rock strata, the deepest reaching 68 meters.

Above ground, the more than 200-meter-tall tower column was divided into more than 40 sections, and then, using this tower-building machine, it was poured and raised section by section under the drive of a hydraulic system.

The bridge tower is growing upwards at an incredible rate of 0.8 meters per day on average.

On the sky, yellow, columnar machines lined both sides. As the audio narrated, the bridge towers grew upwards section by section, like bamboo shoots after a rain, gradually rising.

Eventually, it grew into a towering bridge tower.