Yeah, those auto-bureau-cratic types loved grand projects regardless of human cost. I dunno about the lack of steam shovels, that terrain is so unstable you really have to excavate it faster than it can collapse. Brute labor even at that at that scale might have simply lost the battle of hauling away the landslide debris fast enough for there to be a continuous canal capable of handling seaworthy vessels!
The Chinese would have settled for a goods transfer canal rather than a through passage. It would've been no more significant than the Erie Canal; no small matter, but no WOW either.
Fifty years earlier the same non-transit compromise would be sought, except that a RR would be the efficient goods transfer solution.
When the French tried it just a few years earlier it was Malaria that made it too costly in human lives.
The Chinese would have settled for a goods transfer canal rather than a through passage. It would've been no more significant than the Erie Canal; no small matter, but no WOW either.
Fifty years earlier the same non-transit compromise would be sought, except that a RR would be the efficient goods transfer solution.
When the French tried it just a few years earlier it was Malaria that made it too costly in human lives.
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