Sky Curtain: My Great Qin must have an aircraft carrier!

Upon hearing this, Song Jiang immediately realized that he had encountered bandits.

But the boat was already in the middle of the river, and there was nowhere to run.

"Ban Dao Mian" means to chop you to death with a knife, while "Wonton" means to strip you naked and throw you into the water to drown.

Song Jiang was about to say he loved wontons when, luckily, Li Jun, the "River-Crossing Dragon," arrived just in time, saving his life.

After the laughter subsided, the people in the market let out bursts of amazement.

"My God, Song Jiang is incredibly lucky to have survived such a desperate situation."

"If it were an ordinary person, they would be completely helpless and have no one to turn to."

"Traveling by car or boat is too dangerous. Let's walk instead, is walking alright?"

Upon hearing this, the peddler scoffed, "Walking? You try walking dozens or hundreds of miles of mountain roads."

"Not to mention there are major rivers blocking the way, you can't possibly swim across them."

"They've got you cornered. You have no choice but to get in their car, otherwise who will they rob?"

"It's tough..."

Everyone sighed deeply, feeling that traveling far away was too difficult.

The road is teeming with wolves, tigers, leopards, and all sorts of bandits and robbers, enough to give ordinary people a real hard time.

Just as everyone was sighing, a voice suddenly rang out.

"What about those landlords? Did they do that when they went out?"

As soon as the question was asked, everyone around turned their heads and stared at the peddler.

The peddler's face twitched.

He lifted the white cloth covering the wheelbarrow and, without saying a word, revealed all the goods.

Everyone understood, some took out their money, and others took out their goods.

In no time, half of the goods on the wheelbarrow were gone.

The peddler tucked the copper coin into his pocket, his brow unfurrowing, before continuing.

"As for those landlords and gentry, they had official travel permits issued by the government, which allowed them to travel on official roads and take official boats."

"Even if those petty thieves had ten lives, they wouldn't dare to rob carriages and horses on the official road."

Upon hearing this, the people all showed expressions of envy.

Having money and power is great; even bandits have to avoid you.

Now that we've covered vehicles and boats, let's talk about shops.

This has never disappeared from ancient times to the present: it's a black market shop.

The most famous one is Shizipo in Water Margin, the steamed bun shop run by Sun Erniang, the "Mother Night Demon".

As the saying goes: "At the crossroads of the big tree, guests can pass by anywhere. The fat ones are chopped up to make filling for steamed buns, while the lean ones are used to fill the river."

Look at those people who open shops, they don't even need to stock up on inventory. All they get are customers, and all they get are goods.

Of course, such deadly black shops were not very common in ancient times.

After all, a death is a serious case, and the government will definitely investigate it.

Typical shady shops exploit their remote locations to inflate prices, then resort to violence to force you to buy at an inflated cost.

Upon hearing this, Lu Li couldn't help but complain.

"Isn't this just like any other tourist attraction these days? It's no different from a rip-off shop."

During his last winter vacation, he went to Lijiang Old Town, which was packed with people, like dumplings being dropped into a pot.

Their service attitude was even worse; they were practically unresponsive when asked for directions.

Prices are outrageously high; even a small shop can have an average cost per person that rivals that of Shanghai.

I traveled so far and worked so hard, only to end up not having any fun and getting a lot of frustration.

After discussing the vehicle and boat shops, we'll move on to the porters, the group of porters in the past.

This type of trade, which is mainly based on physical labor, is most likely to form groups and organizations similar to the Canal Gang.

In ancient times, when effective supervision was lacking, embezzlement and collusion with bandits were commonplace.

Leaving aside distant examples, wasn't the clever robbery of the birthday gifts in *Water Margin* simply a case of Chao Gai disguising himself as a porter to be robbed?

"Birthday tribute?"

When Emperor Huizong of Song, Zhao Ji, heard this name, his expression was somewhat puzzled.

He knew about the birthday gifts; it was nothing new for Cai Jing to receive birthday presents every year.

But what Zhao Ji didn't understand was why a rural storyteller would mention this thing?

The historical anecdotes playing in front of the canopy are mostly fabricated stories about the previous dynasty. How come they've been fabricated about themselves this time?

Doesn't that mean the book is actually about the Song Dynasty?

Zhao Ji was immediately annoyed, not because Cai Jing accepted the birthday gifts, but because Tianmu had told him about it.

Doesn't this mean that this scandal has become a topic of conversation among the public?

Cai Jing was the Grand Tutor of the Song Dynasty, yet he disgraced the Song Dynasty!

Zhao Ji stared at the sky for a moment, then turned to look at the eunuch beside him.

"Go find out which bookstore printed this copy, and find it—"

"I also want to see how many other events of my Great Song Dynasty are recorded in this book."

Finally, there are brokerage firms, which are essentially the real estate agents or brokers we're talking about today.

From the Qin and Han dynasties until the end of the Qing dynasty, brokerage firms existed continuously.

Houses, land, livestock, people—brokers are involved in everything.

Brokerage firms are the ones who profit from information asymmetry, which leads them to frequently obstruct operations and resort to all sorts of deception and fraud in order to maximize their profits.

When ordinary people go out, if they encounter a ruthless broker, they can be stripped naked.

"It's really not easy..."

Li Shimin pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking to himself that ordinary people had to face so many dangers when they went on a long journey.

But the reason behind it is clear to everyone present.

The imperial court's administrative capacity was basically limited to the vicinity of the official roads.

In areas where government power cannot reach, these grassroots organizations will naturally emerge.

People can only rely on them if they want to survive and go out to do errands.

Thinking about this, Li Shimin became even more curious about how later generations solved this problem.

Are you really going to build the road all the way to the ends of the earth?

"Kemin, what is the current state of our Great Tang Dynasty?"

Li Shimin thought for a moment, then asked the question.

Du Ruhui was speechless for a moment, quickly flipped through a few pages in the manual, and managed to give a reply.

"According to the combined accounts of the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Works last year, as well as the annual accounts of various prefectures and counties, the official roads can connect about 30% of the country."

"The rest of the roads are mostly old roads from the previous dynasty, which are still barely usable."

"As for the dirt roads in the countryside... I am ashamed to say that I do not know them for the time being."

The civil officials remained silent. Of course they knew the benefits of building roads, but the Tang Dynasty did not have the capacity for it.

Once a road is repaired, it can be used indefinitely; it requires continuous maintenance.

The Ministry of Revenue was already struggling to keep the existing official roads from collapsing.

Further expansion would be impossible for the national treasury to support.

Li Shimin naturally understood, and his voice carried a hint of melancholy as he thought of the smooth roads of later generations.

"If the canopy could explain the road construction method in the same way it explains glassmaking, that would be wonderful."

Everyone looked at each other, all with the same expression.

Who wouldn't be looking forward to that?

If we could reduce the cost of road construction, it would be more precious than gold!

Not only Li Shimin and others, but Zhu Di also showed the same expression.

Moreover, having overseen the relocation of the capital, he had a more personal understanding of the difficulties of road construction.

The imperial highways that stretched from Nanjing to Beijing, traversing half of the Central Plains, nearly emptied the national treasury.

Furthermore, on this basis, the number of post horses and post soldiers was increased to ensure that government orders could be delivered to the whole country.

After the entire system was built, Zhu Di realized that building roads was expensive, but maintaining them was even more expensive.

Especially after the thawing in spring and the heavy rains in autumn, the roads need to be repaired.

Moving the capital to Beijing, transporting grain and supplies, and launching the northern expedition against Mongolia—everything was hampered by this terrible road!

"With so many years of development in later generations, surely there are better methods?"

Zhu Di rubbed his hands together excitedly as he recalled the dark, gleaming road of later generations.

The fact that it could be deployed on a large scale within a city indicates that the cost could not have been too high.

If the Ming Dynasty had this, would it still need to worry about roads?

"Guards!" Zhu Di shouted.

"Let the Ministry of Works gather all the skilled craftsmen in the land to thoroughly study what materials the roads of future generations will be made of."

"I'm giving you six months. If you can't solve it, you'll have to offer your heads!"

The Minister of Works, who had just arrived: ? ? ?

I'm researching asphalt? Really?