Wang Yue paused there and glanced at Boss Xie before speaking in a very serious tone. "Uncle Xie, after Master Liu and I repaired our cargo ships, they're almost as good as new. We should still be able to sell them for a decent amount.
"If we add that to the money we kids have earned, and you save up for a while longer, I think it'll take only a few years before we can buy a big ship capable of carrying cargo across the sea.
"When that time comes, you and Uncle Xia can take the ship out to sea and transport goods. We can also spread our canal culture far and wide and build a Grand Canal out on the ocean."
After hearing Wang Yue's encouraging words to Boss Xie, Old Master Zhou's thinking suddenly opened up. He realized that he'd always confined canal culture to the canals themselves. But after Wang Yue's reminder, he felt his own perspective had been narrow—narrower even than a child's.
After all, hadn't Emperor Yang of Sui built the Grand Canal with the aim of connecting the north and south?
Once the canal was built, trade between the north and south increased. It allowed the high-yield rice from the south to be transported north, ensuring people there wouldn't starve. It also let goods from the north be sent south, so each region could trade what the other lacked, greatly improving living conditions across the country.
So the essence of a canal was transportation, and canal culture was a form of transport culture.
If that was the case, then river transport, land transport, and even sea transport were all part of transport culture. They all served the same purpose, so why insist on limiting it to canals?
Before anyone else could speak, Old