Time Travel: I am the idle king Li Shen and Li Shimin in the Tang Dynasty

Many people don't understand why Li Shen would go to such trouble to build the road at his own expense.

Why not suggest that the court build roads?

Even Wang Xuance and Wang Hongfu from Prince Ji's mansion didn't understand what Prince Ji was thinking.

Over the past ten years, Prince Ji's palace has built many roads, from Chang'an all the way to the Xinzhou coast.

There are roads from Chang'an to Luoyang, from Chang'an to Liaodong, and from Chang'an to Qinghai.

The rest that went to the Wei River, the Dongshan military camp, his mines, and the large and small imperial farms were not included.

These roads cost the Ji Palace a lot of financial resources, but on the surface the Ji Palace did not gain anything from them.

So Wang Xuance was very puzzled that Li Shen wanted to build a road again this time.

"Your Highness, which road are we going to build this time?" Wang Xuance asked.

"Build a road to the Western Regions."

"What!!" Wang Xuance was shocked.

"Your Highness, the road to the Western Regions is more than ten thousand miles long. Even if all the wealth of Prince Ji's Mansion was spent and ten years' income was invested in it, it would not be enough to repair half of it."

Wang Xuance now began to suspect that when His Majesty punished Prince Ji a few days ago, he hit him on the head and made Prince Ji stupid.

In Wang Xuance's opinion, their prince was either crazy or stupid, and had a brain disease.

The road to the Western Regions is more than ten thousand miles long, and it would take ten or twenty years to complete.

What's more, Prince Ji's Mansion doesn't have that much financial resources.

Li Shen saw Wang Xuance losing his composure and pressed him down with his hand.

"Please be patient. I know all this. I am talking about the part within the territory of the Tang Dynasty. We have already built the road to Chang'an.

This king intends to build another road from here all the way to the border of Anxi Duhu.

In this way, more merchants from the Western Regions can be attracted here, increasing the passenger flow to the important city.

This is also for the purpose of recovering the cost as soon as possible.

This place cost me tens of millions of coins to build. I feel sad just thinking about it."

Li Shen pretended to touch his heart and said.

However, Wang Xuance must have felt distressed. Tens of millions of strings of cash were the annual tax revenue of the Tang Dynasty, and even after deducting rent, commissions and taxes, it was not that much.

The Prince Ji's palace was built by robbing Peter to pay Paul. Prince Ji personally took charge and used all kinds of fraud to build this important city.

It was originally thought that the cost could be recovered within three to five years and the trade with Tibet was thriving, but who could have imagined that Tibet would suddenly start to attack the city.

The prosperous trade was stopped just like that. In terms of losses, no one suffered as much as the Prince Ji's Mansion.

Prince Ji wanted to build a road from Qinghai Road to the border of Anxi Protectorate to increase the flow of merchants and to find another way.

But...

“Your Highness, although the road is good and can increase the frequency of Western merchants coming here, Chang’an is the capital after all.

Many people want to visit Chang'an City to see the humanities and culture of the Tang Dynasty.

Moreover, even if we start building from here, the distance to Anxi Protectorate is still farther than the distance from Chang'an City to here.

A lot of the area in between is northern grassland, so it is very difficult to build roads and requires a lot of investment.”

Wang Xuance didn't want to pour cold water on him, but Prince Ji thought the matter was too simple.

To go to Anxi, you have to go north, pass Liangzhou, and then go west. This thousand miles is the territory of the Turks, Tuyuhun, Gaochang, and some Tiele tribes.

Li Shen frowned.

"How far do you estimate it should be?"

Wang Xuance thought about it.

"At least three thousand miles."

"Three thousand miles? So far." Li Shen was also extremely surprised. It was actually three thousand miles from here to the border of Anxi Protectorate.

"Your Highness, what I am talking about is at least three thousand miles away, maybe even more." Wang Xuance said seriously.

Li Shen has a poor sense of distance. He usually takes a car and never walks or rides a horse. He only knows how many days the journey will take.

Three thousand miles, one thousand five hundred kilometers, sounds so far.

"Xuan Ce, you are not saying this on purpose to prevent me from building the road, are you?" Li Shen lay there and looked at Wang Xuance with a squint.

Wang Xuance was extremely helpless.

"Your Highness, have you ever walked through the Kaiyuan Gate of Chang'an City?" Wang Xuance looked at Li Shen and asked.

"No, why would the king go away so far?"

Li Shen shook his head. With his status, how could he go through a side door like Kaiyuan Gate? Only ordinary people and merchants go through it.

He went through the Jinguan Gate, the main gate of the west gate.

"Your Highness, there is a stone tablet in front of Kaiyuan Gate, on which is written eight characters by the famous calligrapher Yu Shinan, the Duke of Yongxing County.

The Western Road is nine thousand nine hundred miles.

The distance from Chang'an to the border of Anxi is 9,900 li, less than 10,000 li.

To show the Rong people that they are not prepared to travel thousands of miles, so that everyone will not be afraid."

"Domineering!"

Li Shen couldn't help but sigh, "The Western Road is nine thousand nine hundred miles long." This is telling the people of the world that the territory of our Tang Dynasty from Chang'an to the western border is only nine thousand nine hundred miles long, less than ten thousand miles.

This is a Versailles thing, and it also shows that the soldiers are not willing to travel thousands of miles. This is to tell the soldiers,

Don't worry, the border is less than ten thousand miles away, you will be able to come back.

"How many miles is it from Chang'an to the border of Anxi Protectorate?"

Li Shen, who was still intoxicated, suddenly sat up and asked.

"Your Highness, I'm not sure about this either, but it should be around five or six thousand miles. So building a road from here to the Anxi border would take at least three thousand miles, maybe four thousand or five thousand miles."

Wang Xuance nodded.

"Oh my god~~~~" Li Shen leaned back and fell on the recliner.

How much money would it cost to complete the repair? Money is secondary. The main thing is time. Even if he recruited hundreds of thousands of people to repair it, it would take several years, or even ten years?

“Xuan Ce, in fact, I want to build this road not only for the important cities of Qinghai, but also for the imperial court.

You also know that the imperial court may take action against the Western Turks, and in the early stages it will probably be Yanqi and Kucha.

If we repair the road, the army will be able to move very quickly.

But now it seems that if this road is built, it will probably be more expensive than this important city, and tens of millions of strings of cash may not be enough.

Where can I get so much money?"

Li Shen began to worry.

Although I seem to be doing very well now, I still have many debts that have not been paid off.

The wages for building the road from Qinghai to Chang'an were settled once a year, and the wages for cement and iron, sand, stone, food, and supplies were all settled once a year.

The several million he has in his vault now might not be enough, but luckily he still managed to cheat his father out of so much money, so he still has more than two million left.

"Your Majesty, if I were to ask you, let it go.

It would be better to wait until the Qinghai Road is completed before repairing it.

The road to Liaodong has not been completed for more than two years. Although a lot of donations have been raised, the royal palace may have spent more than three million strings of cash.

Prince Ji’s Mansion has no money left.”

Wang Xuance advised that he was afraid that their prince would act on impulse, and that such examples had happened to Li Shen more than once or twice.