Transportation Reform (8)

Before the Industrial Revolution, they say there were exactly three cities in the world with populations exceeding one million.

Edo, Beijing, and Istanbul.

Beijing could be excluded, since it was a crazy country whose population alone exceeded a whopping 300 million, while Istanbul was the core city of the Ottoman Empire, so that was understandable.

However, after being reincarnated in Joseon, I found it somewhat galling to hear that Edo, merely the capital of the Tokugawa shogunate that occupied the Japanese archipelago, had a population of one million.

I couldn't help thinking, Why can't Joseon do what those Japanese bastards can?

“So you're saying we should take on even more work?”

“Yes, Father-in-law. Broadly speaking, it will be for the sake of the country, and more narrowly, for you and me. Is there any reason not to do it?”

History is also a summary of the trial and error experienced by countless people.

Humanity lost hundreds of millions, even billions, of lives before learning that failing to wash one's hands or bathe properly could make you sick or even kill you.

The Japanese next door, especially the citizens of Edo, often ate nothing but white-rice meals as a symbol of wealth, only to contract beriberi and die...