Wanli Xinming

Chapter 129
In August of the third year of Wanli, the heavy rain in the Jianghuai land came late, but it was slow and urgent, and there was no rest.

Qinghe County, Gaoyan Village's Eleventh Fort Hou Er picked up the last few grains of rice in the bowl, picked up the crock next to him, and drank the boiled pumpkin soup like a giant whale sucking water. half.

Looking at the half-old girl who was squatting and swallowing saliva, he put down the earthen pot, took out a handful of fried rice with husks from his arms, put it on the stove and said to her, "Well, these are for you as snacks. Eat. Dad went out to patrol the embankment."

His wife Lin Shi saw that he gave his daughter rice grains to eat again, and said from the side: "These are for your hunger, what are you giving her to eat!" After speaking, she glanced at her daughter who had not dared to reach out, then The girl was so frightened that she was about to cry.

Hou Er stood up and scolded: "You stupid old woman, what are you doing to scare her?" He bent over and swept the rice grains on the stove into his palm, handed it to his daughter and smiled: "Eat it, Dad has a lot more. , I have to bring some for Uncle Tian who is on shift. Eat it, it's alright."

After speaking, Hou Er stood up, put on a blackened hoodie and a patched hat, and fastened two cotton ropes under his chin.

Picking up a gong on the ground in front of the house, Hou Er left the thatched hut like a shack and walked barefoot into the rain.

At this time, Qinghe County had all been mobilized.Ma Shengming, the county magistrate, personally led the team and was patrolling the Gaojiayan embankment despite the heavy rain.

Tian Zhixing, the chief of Gaojiayan Eleventh Fort, who accompanied Ma County magistrate, was already like a mud monkey, his face covered in muddy water.

He sat on the ground and put on the straw sandals that he had just dropped, stood up and took off the hat on top of his head, let the rain fall on his face, and wiped it several times in a row, and then he looked like a man.

Putting on the bamboo hat, Tian Zhixing shouted at Ma Shengming: "Old parents, I have arranged the patrolling in this fort, and they are all patrolling with gongs. Don't worry. It's raining too much, it's coming to me soon. Warm and warm with ginger soup at home."

Ma Shengming didn't seem to hear it, he just looked at Hongze Lake in the rain.

The Gaojiayan embankment with a width of [-] feet at the top of the dam was built with loess at this time, and willow trees were planted on it.Half a month ago, this embankment was still a beautiful arterial road, and it was the main exit of Qinghe County.

Ma Shengming, who passed by Gaojiayan half a month ago as a gift, clearly saw a slope covered with grass and willow trees under the embankment.This large slope, which is hundreds of feet long, slowly slopes down along the embankment and inserts into the Hongze Lake in the distance.

At that time, Ma Shengming thought in his heart that this is not a levee, but a mountain. No amount of flood can break such a levee.

At that time, the embankment was far away from the lake.Ma Shengming clearly remembered seeing several shepherd boys grazing cattle by the lake and playing in the lake by themselves.Ma County Magistrate, who has studied for more than 20 years, stood on the embankment and looked at the past. The shepherd boys were like ink dots in an ink painting, which only attracted poetry.

Of course, that poetry has long since disappeared.From the night he returned to the county seat, the rain had been fluctuating without a break.Hongze Lake, which was quiet and gentle half a month ago, now seems to have a giant dragon rolling over and rolling at the bottom of the lake, bringing up rows of turbid yellow waves, which slap directly on the embankment.

Ma Shengming, who had been eating and lodging on the embankment these days, watched the lake water come from a distance, dozens of meters a day, and in just ten days, it rushed to the edge of the embankment.The large willow tree that had taken root under the embankment and was as high as two feet was already invisible at this time, and it was not in the roaring lake water with floating white foam.

He wiped the rain off his face and continued to patrol the embankment with a sullen face.Seeing that he would not go back, Tian Zhixing had no choice but to follow behind, cursing in his mouth, "God, this thief, it rains so heavily in the autumn, but he is doing something wrong!"

Before he finished speaking, as if answering his curse, there was a cluck in the depths of Hongze Lake, and lightning filled the dark sky, and then there was a burst of thunder rolling over.

Tian Zhixing abruptly pricked up his ears. He had clearly heard the sound of gongs along with the sound of thunder.

The thunder was far away, and the gong sounded.Ma Shengming also heard that just in front of them, with a sense of anxiety, penetrated the rain curtain, and faintly heard.

Ma Shengming hurriedly instructed: "Quick! All of them gather forward!" The fortress chiefs who followed him hurriedly ran back in the rain, calling for his young men to gather there.

As Ma Shengming ran, the sound of the gong became clearer and clearer.He ran in a hurry, suddenly slipped to the ground, fell and gnawed at the mud.The relatives around him hurriedly helped him up, and Ma Shengming didn't care about the muddy water on his body, he got up and ran.

After running for half an hour, Ma Shengming, who was almost out of breath, finally saw someone beating a gong outside the foot of the embankment in front of him. Under the man's feet was a gurgling pipe. Looking down from the embankment, he could not see how big the pipe was.

Looking closely, there is no Heding outside the pipe, but a woman with patches all over her body, screaming while beating the gong in a hurry.

When Ma Shengming slid down the embankment, one foot deep and one foot shallow, he suddenly saw a mud figurine suddenly emerge from the gushing muddy water.The clay figurine wiped his face and shouted something at the woman.The woman who was playing the gong was at a loss, dropped the gong, and reached out to pull him.

The clay figurine opened the woman's hand, stretched out both hands and feet, as if trying to block the rushing torrent with his body, and threw his body there.

Ma Shengming shouted from his throat, and rolled down the Banpo with a screeching force.Before he could get up, in a daze, he saw a scene that he will never forget:
The woman bent over and picked up the gong, struck it twice, and looked around at a loss.Seeing Ma Shengming and others running over in the rain, she dropped the gong again.

She tugged at the front of her clothes, wiped her face, and shouted, "Head of the House!"Jumped in from that pipe!
Tian Zhixing next to Ma County magistrate shouted, Hou Er, Hou Er's family!come out faster!With a cry in his throat, he rushed forward.

The strong yamen who were beside Ma County magistrate also rushed over, and everyone screamed wildly around the pipe.But I could only see that the water flow like the yellow mud soup was getting smaller, and a man used a shovel to probe into it for five or six feet, but no one was found.

Tian Zhixing wiped away the tears and rainwater on his face, and shouted loudly, there is a vortex inside, which cannot be fished out!Fill it in quickly, or these two will die in vain!
Ma Shengming could swear to God that he had never experienced such an emotion: that day he used a shovel he had never touched, and the dozens of men who followed him, choked up and devoured a shovel of soil. In the pipeline of two lives.
Since the birth of Chinese civilization, the struggle against the flood has been engraved in the Chinese people's bones and soul.The three major rivers, the Yellow River, the Huai River, and the Yangtze River, have nurtured the nation and, in the entire history of civilization, have also brought serious disasters to the Chinese who are born and old.

During the Song and Jin wars, Du Chong, who stayed behind in Tokyo in the Northern Song Dynasty, was in Juehe, Huaxian County, Henan Province in order to prevent the Jin soldiers from going south. This time, the Juehe changed not only the war situation between Song and Jin, but also the entire Chinese nation—— The three great rivers, which have had considerable governance experience since the Qin and Han dynasties, are chaotic.

Before the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yellow River had a separate channel to enter the sea in Hebei, and the Huai River also entered the sea alone.However, after Du Chongjue the river, the Yellow River descended, and the Huaihe River was taken away, which is called "Driving the Yellow River to the Huaihe River" in history.

Because the Yellow River is high and the Huaihe River is low, after the confluence of the Yellow River and the Huaihe River, the Huaihe River cannot compete with the Yellow River, and the sediment brought by the Yellow River accumulates year by year, causing the two rivers to flood almost every year.The domino effect caused by Du Chong eventually formed a series of lakes including Hongze Lake at the confluence of the Yellow and Huaihe Rivers, and eventually led to the Huaihe River, which originally had a unique outlet to the sea, became a tributary of the Yangtze River.

This time, the three major rivers, each with its own basin, formed a complex situation of water potential linkage, and the difficulty of water control for the Chinese nation has since doubled.After the early Ming Dynasty, the Grand Canal running through these watersheds lived in the middle, and the court's idea of ​​water control to ensure water transportation made it even more difficult to control by several orders of magnitude.

Therefore, Zhu Yijun's choice of sea canals instead of river canals is not only the need for financial hemostasis and revitalization of the south of the Yangtze River, but also the best choice to completely control the floods-yes, there is no other way. Flooding, Pan Jixun led water conservancy experts across the country to investigate for a year and came to the final conclusion: we can only abandon the guarantee of water transportation!

　Note: Waiting for the second block of water seems to be an event during the Qianlong period - Lao Mo brought this legend a hundred years in advance, in order to depict the spirit of the Chinese nation and the flood to fight to the death.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)