The canal is an indispensable man-made road for shipping, which can reduce costs, shorten transportation distances, and benefit tens of thousands of people. The only domestic canal we are familiar with is the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and the canal we want to introduce to you today is located in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous RegionPinglu CanalIt is expected to have a total length of 135 km and an investment of 727300 million, it is also the first canal after the founding of New China. Today, I will take you to find out, which costs about 5 per kilometer3.8 billion super canal.
As we all know, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is a canal connecting Beijing and Suzhou and Hangzhou, passing through eight provincial-level administrative regions and connecting five major water systems on the way, which not only ensures the food security of the people in ancient times, but also one of the reasons why Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces can continue to maintain prosperity in modern times. When it comes to Guangxi, everyone has the impression that Guangxi belongs to the south, and there are many plains in the south, so they will think that Guangxi also has many plains, but in fact, it is not. Guangxi is located in the southeast corner of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, surrounded by mountains on three sidesTherefore, Guangxi is also known as the "Guangxi Basin".
To the south isGulf of Tonkin BayIt is also the only place in Guangxi that is connected to water, so if Guangxi wants to go to other eastern provinces by water, it can only be transported fromQiongzhou StraitCircle. It not only increases the pressure on the Qiongzhou Strait, but also increases the cost of transportation, and also makes Guangxi the only province that is close to the sea and seems to have convenient shipping but cannot rely on its development.
To this end, the state put forward a strategy to build a Pinglu Canal in Guangxi, which can not only connect the rivers scattered in Guangxi, but also connect the westward shipping trunk line with the international seaport of Beibu Gulf, at that time, Guangxi may become the next rich Suzhou and Hangzhou.
You must know that Guangxi is rich in fruits, and the local population is limited, and every year when local fruits are traded, they are half sold and half given. If these fruits can be transported, then not only will the people of Guangxi be able to obtain income, which will greatly increase Guangxi's GDP, but the mainland will also be able to taste more fruits belonging to Guangxi, and even export them more conveniently, and then Guangxi will truly become a coastal province that depends on the sea for food.
In addition, Guangxi is also relatively close to Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao in the east, and Southeast Asia in the south, so Guangxi is an important hub of the Maritime Silk Road. Moreover, when the state was formulating the strategy for the large-scale development of the western region, it deliberately brought Guangxi out to say that it also represented Guangxi's uniqueness and importance. As early as more than 100 years ago, Mr. Sun Yat-sen had put forward the idea of digging a canal in Guangxi, but due to poverty, internal and external troubles, this idea was shelved. It was not until 2022 that New China put this idea into practice, and the Pinglu Canal officially started construction on August 28, 2022.
So where did the name of the Pinglu Canal come from?The word Pingzi refers to the Pingtang River, Lu refers to the Luwu River, and the Pinglu Canal refers to a canal connecting these two rivers. To be exactThe Pinglu Canal starts from the mouth of the Pingtang River in Xijinku District, Hengzhou City, Nanning City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and enters the Beibu Gulf through the Yanqing River in Luwu Town, Lingshan County, Qingzhou City, with a total length of about 135km. By the time it is completed, the canal is expected to be able to accommodate 5,000-ton ships, equivalent to the weight of 88 wagons. Compared with water transportation, land transportation is, of course, cheaper by water.
Although the total length of the Pinglu Canal is less than one-tenth of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the cost is not cheap, and the cost per kilometer will cost more than 500 million. Many people will wonder how many years it will take to run for such a high cost to recover the money spent digging the canalIn fact, once this canal is successfully built, it can be passed down for a hundred years or even a thousand years, like the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, which was built in the Spring and Autumn Period, and we still continue to use it.
Since the war between us and the United States, the goods exported to the United States have been affected, but fortunately, our relationship with ASEAN has been good, and for this reason, the Pinglu Canal has been dug to facilitate our transportation of goods to Southeast Asia for sale. And it is not only the goods of Guangxi that are transported, such as Guizhou behind Guangxi, and Yunnan in the west, which can be transported with the help of the Pinglu Canal.
Many people will ask again, what to do with the soil dug out of the canal?Is it just piled up there and left it alone?Some people also say that the excavated soil can be transported to Hong Kong to reclaim land and reduce the pressure on housing in Hong Kong. In fact, this idea is quite good, but the implementation is not very realistic.
Because the excavated soil is a drop in the ocean for land reclamation. Of course, the excavated soil will not be left alone in a pile of Guangxi Laobiao. As early as the design of the Pinglu Canal, the soil was planned and used to supplement the arable land. Because our country's cultivated land has a fixed index, digging a canal will inevitably damage some cultivated land, so the excavated soil will be used to supplement the cultivated land, which is equivalent to changing the position of the cultivated land.
The Pinglu Canal is expected to be completed and put into use in 2026, and there are only three years left.