"Eyes embracing thousands of rivers, mind conceiving a million soldiers." Xinhua News Agency reporters are always on the road, bringing unique thoughts and insights while fulfilling their journalistic duties. These reflections, expressed in beautiful and enduring prose, also contribute to telling China's stories well. Starting today, the "Grassland" supplement of Xinhua Daily Telegraph will launch the "Xinhua Notes" column, publishing the travelogues of Xinhua News Agency reporters for readers to share.

I once visited the Lingqu Canal. The first time was in a year, while walking the Long March route, I arrived in Xing'an, Guangxi, where I met the old scholar Chen Xinghua, who was explaining the Battle of Xiangjiang. He suggested that I must see the Lingqu Canal. At that time, the Lingqu Canal was not on the scheduled itinerary. Chen Xinghua is actually an expert on the Lingqu Canal, full of affection for this ancient engineering marvel. He led us to a park-like courtyard, where the entrance was flanked by two statues of Qin soldiers on horseback, which was different from the Dujiangyan Irrigation System, another Qin-era water project I was familiar with. The Lingqu Canal that greeted my eyes was a calm "stream," about six or seven meters wide and four or five meters deep, a serene green flow that seemed almost motionless, unlike the roaring Minjiang River at Dujiangyan. Local residents were washing clothes in the water, and children were swimming. The green trees on both sides were the oldest, some dating back 2200 years.

This year, I visited twice by chance and met Chen Xinghua again. This time, I also visited the newly built Lingqu Museum. People were playing and splashing around the Lingqu. The Lingqu Museum is tall and grand, a rarity among county-level cultural and historical museums. It clearly explains how this man-made canal connects the northward-flowing Xiangjiang River with the southward-flowing Lijiang River. I am familiar with both rivers, but it was only here that I learned the construction of the Lingqu was due to war. After unifying the six states, Qin Shi Huang turned his attention to the Lingnan region. In the year 214 BC, he ordered Tu Sui to lead an army of 500,000 to conquer the Baiyue. However, upon reaching the mountainous border between Hunan and Guangxi, they encountered fierce resistance, and for years, the army could not advance, especially due to the extreme difficulty in transporting military provisions. To solve this problem, in 214 BC, Qin Shi Huang ordered the supervisory official Lu to manage military supplies and supervise soldiers and laborers to build a man-made canal in the Xing'an region. This canal allowed the Qin army's provisions to be transported from the Yangtze River to the Xiangjiang River and then to the Lijiang River, reaching the main battlefield where they fought the Baiyue.

The Lingqu Canal project took years to complete, being excavated in 214 BC. Large quantities of grain and fodder were transported via waterways, and that same year, Qin troops conquered the Lingnan region. Subsequently, the three prefectures of Guilin, Xiangjun, and Nanhai were established, incorporating vast areas including present-day Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan into the Qin Empire. This laid the foundation for the Chinese territory. Today, at the Lingqu Canal, one can still see the ancient dam built by the Qin people, which divides the waters of the Xiangjiang River into a ratio of three to seven. Seven parts flow along the original course into the old Xiangjiang River, while three parts flow into the artificially excavated Lingqu Canal. The water flows ceaselessly, enduring for millennia. In the month when I visited this year, I had the fortune to board a boat and ascend the "Hua Zui," the dam that divides the water, rather than merely viewing it from afar as I had done on my previous two visits. The area is overgrown with weeds and densely packed with stubborn rocks. On the dam stands a pavilion, constructed by modern people, with a couplet inscribed: "Coming against the current, departing with it; lowering the sail is still the time to hoist it." This evokes endless reverie.

Standing at the very tip of the Hua Zui, one can see the green mountains on both banks winding gracefully, with the clear "Ocean Water" (the name of the upper reaches of the Xiang River) rushing towards you, splitting at your feet into the Xiang River and the Ling Canal, as if history itself has forked here, a result entirely of human will, no longer the natural evolution of the universe. The scene before you evokes the memory of the Qin army's ships, their masts like a forest, sailing across this silk-smooth, transparent water, as if it were just yesterday. Our present is determined by such a miraculous history. If the Qin had not built the Ling Canal and thus failed to unify the Lingnan region, what would the Han Dynasty have been like? What about China thereafter? How many changes would there have been in the characters described by Sima Qian? How would Toynbee write his world history?

The Ling Canal reveals the complexity of hydraulic engineering in that era and the remarkable skill of ancient technology. The multi-level locks of the Ling Canal, with their principles and scenes, are strikingly similar to those of the Gezhouba and Three Gorges Dam locks today. Near the Ling Canal where it meets the Lijiang River, the ruins of a Qin dynasty city were discovered. In Xing'an County, some surnames are speculated to be descendants of the Qin people. One can imagine how these soldiers and laborers from the north settled in the "malaria-infested" regions of Lingnan, gradually adapting to and even coming to love this land, intermarrying with the local ethnic groups, and continuing to thrive to this day.

The Ling Canal was born out of war, but over the long course of history, it has played a role in peaceful construction. Its existence facilitated the exchange of goods, culture, politics, and folklore between the north and south, and it even became a segment connecting the Maritime Silk Road. Locals say that its navigation function continued into the 1900s, when grain-collecting fleets still sailed through it. Its functions for irrigation and flood control remain intact to this day. In 2018, the Ling Canal was inscribed on the World List of Irrigation Works, and now it is actively applying for World Heritage status.

There are two other significant events related to the Lingqu Canal. One is the Jieshou, just a few kilometers away from the Lingqu Canal, which was the site where the Central Committee, the Military Commission, and the main forces of the Red Army crossed the Xiangjiang River during the Long March in 1934. The Battle of Xiangjiang was a decisive battle that determined the fate of the Red Army. It awakened the Red Army from the "Left" dogmatism and prepared the ground for the subsequent Zunyi Conference. Therefore, it is said that Xing'an County witnessed two major events that changed the course of Chinese history. The other is the construction of the Pinglu Canal, which is located a few kilometers away from the Lingqu Canal. The Pinglu Canal originates from Hengzhou City in Nanning, passes through Lingshan County in Qinzhou, and flows into the Beibu Gulf along the Qinjiang River. If the 36-kilometer-long Lingqu Canal witnessed the unification of the Chinese nation and cultural exchanges, then the 140-kilometer-long Pinglu Canal symbolizes the prosperity and openness of the new era. It connects China with ASEAN countries, promoting cooperation and development among more civilizations in a larger region of the world.

Visiting the Lingqu Canal, the only thing I couldn't understand was, with the strength of the Baiyue tribes back then, how they managed to resist the Qin army, which was invincible in the Central Plains. Even after the Lingqu Canal was completed and the Qin army launched a full-scale invasion, the locals still managed to kill the highest commander of the Qin army, Tu Sui, in their resistance. So, why didn't they dispatch a few small squads to sabotage the canal during its construction years, or even after it was completed, to cut off this artery? A kilometer-long canal, any section of it could have been attacked, couldn't it? Even in today's modern warfare, where drones, artificial intelligence, artificial satellites, and ultra-high-speed long-range missiles have rendered canals unnecessary, logistics remain fundamental and challenging. No one can give a definite answer to my question. Some say that the Qin army was powerful and effectively controlled the region, while the Baiyue were relatively weak. Others say that no one has ever raised this question before and that it needs to be asked of archaeologists. Still, others suggest that perhaps the Baiyue did engage in such battles but failed. The AI's answer is roughly the same, particularly mentioning that the Qin army might have employed "targeted strategies" to build the Lingqu Canal. The intriguing aspect of history is that it is often shrouded in mystery. Since the past cannot be assumed, there is room for science fiction.