In the twenty-first century, ancient-text restorer Zhuang Yu unexpectedly acquires a Tang dynasty manuscript fragment titled Record of Cutting Through Mountains and Filling Valleys. The engineering codes recorded in it bear a startling resemblance to the construction of the Qin Straight Road two thousand years ago.
In 212 BC, to defend the north against the Xiongnu, the First Emperor ordered the general Meng Tian to build a “straight road” from Xianyang all the way to Jiuyuan. The world's earliest “highway,” it cut through mountains and filled valleys, stretching for 1,800 li. It was completed in two and a half years, and for more than two thousand years, not a blade of grass has grown along it.
