Cutting 1719

Chapter 671
In July, the summer is scorching hot, and the high temperature is scorching the earth. For the gully-ridden Loess Plateau, it means that another year of severe drought is coming. Big yellow waves.

Ning Yu opened the curtain on the imperial chariot, and looked at the dust in the sky expressionlessly. Due to the poor visibility, he couldn't see anything other than the wind and sand. All he could see was the sparse Trees, their scorched leaves indicate that they are about to dry up and die, and even the tenacious grasses fall to the ground—this is a forbidden zone of life.

Today, the convoy is located in Ningxia, and their destination is Guyuan, once one of the Nine Sides of the Ming Dynasty, Guyuan Town.

Ning Yu put down the curtain, turned around and sat back on the imperial chariot, looked at an old man with sparse brows below him and said in a low voice: "Mr. Chen, it's hard work for you to run with me this time. It's really not easy!"

The old man looked a little nervous, and quickly stood up from the small stool to kowtow to Ning Yu, but was stopped by Ning Yu. He pushed the old man back on the stool and said, "This time I am here in Guyuan. It’s not to see Mr. Chen kowtow to me, but to ask Mr. Chen to come out of the mountain and control the Yellow River!”

It turned out that the old man's surname was Chen Mingding, but he was a well-known figure. His father was Chen Huang, an aide who assisted Jin Fu, the river governor, in governing the Yellow River. That's why Ning Yu invited his third son, Chen Ding, out of the mountain to take charge of the Yellow River governance this time.

"Your Majesty, I'm incompetent, I'm afraid it's difficult to explain to Your Majesty. For this matter, Your Majesty is asked to choose another talented person, and I will definitely assist you with all your strength." Chen Ding showed a cautious look, but he tried his best to refuse the job.

"Chen Qing don't want to refuse, the merits of Mr. Shengzhai back then have not been covered up, I know it!"

Ning Yu looked a little dignified, and he said in a low voice: "Now the Yellow River bursts every year, and the number of people affected by the disaster is more than millions. The reason why we mainly migrated from the Loess Plateau in the past was to alleviate the disaster of the Yellow River from the source. But in addition to treating the root cause, we also need to treat the symptoms!"

"Father, hey, this is really hard to describe!"

Chen Ding let out a long sigh, which indeed concealed the sadness and blood and tears of a generation.

When the San Francisco Rebellion suddenly broke out, the flood of the Yellow River caused the seven counties of the Jianghuai River to become a yellow flood zone. Hundreds of thousands of people were affected. Many people fell to the side of the road. The tragedy was extraordinary. Kangxi immediately sent people to manage the Yellow River, but it was very difficult to manage the Yellow River at that time, so he selected a very shrewd and capable minister as the new governor of the river, and this person was Jin Fu.

The day when Jin Fu became the governor of the river course was the time when the Yellow River and the Huaihe River were flooding very badly. Ji Ruxi, Minister of Industry at that time, personally surveyed the river engineering and found that not only the river course was in disrepair, but also lacked effective river control talents. The former river governor Wang Guangyu was incompetent. However, the planned river control projects only remained on paper, so Jin Fu faced a very difficult situation and could not find a breakthrough.

In order to find real talents for river governance, Jin Fu even wrote in his memorial to Kangxi: "Whether you are a gentleman, a soldier, a civilian, a craftsman, a husband or a servant, etc., if you have something to say, if you can do something, you should choose it with an open mind. .”

Under such circumstances, Chen Huang quickly stood out. He didn't like stereotyped articles since he was a child. When he was young, he studied books on farmland and water conservancy. When the two met, Jin Fu admired Chen Huang's talents very much, and soon invited him to manage the Yellow River as an aide. Afterwards, Jin served as the governor of the river, and Chen Huang followed him. Jin Fu would always ask about the river, and Huang would be sincere. Answer, in the following ten years, all the planning of Jin Fuzhi River came from Chen Huang's hands.

In order to repay Jin Fu's kindness, Chen Huang naturally spared no effort. He often trekked hundreds of miles up and down, examining them one by one. In the end, he inherited and developed the thought of Pan Jixun, a famous river control expert in the Ming Dynasty, in terms of governance methods, that is, continue to Adhere to the river control theory of "building embankments to restrain water and attack sand with water", and on this basis, decided to combine "diversion" and "confluence" to deal with the protection of river water by "diversion and killing force", and The long-term development arrangement is to take "merge sand attack" as the arrangement.

In the next few years, Jin Fu and Chen Huang rushed to the front line of river control, and the first thing they did was to divert the Qingkou mud into the four channels of the river, and dredged the river from Qingjiangpu to Yuntiguan, creating a Built more than [-] feet of embankments to seal [-] large breaches in Wangjiagang and Wujiadun.

In order to prevent the downstream of the Yellow River from breaching, Jin Fu and Chen Huang also proposed to build a dam on the upper reaches. Each dam has seven holes, and each hole is one foot and eight feet wide. The total drainage area is twelve feet and six feet. The water can be used for venting. Later, in order to build the Caodi of Jiangdu and plug the breach of Qingshuitan, a crescent-shaped embankment was built in the lake at a distance of 840 or [-] feet from the breach. The Xiyue River is [-] feet long, and the Hebei is named 'Yong'an River', and the embankment is named 'Yong'an Embankment'.

Twenty-two years after Kangxi, Jin Fu, according to Emperor Kangxi's instructions to prevent flooding and flooding, opened a new river in the bank of the Yellow River in Suqian, Taoyuan, and Qinghe counties, called Zhonghe. The clear water of Luoma Lake descends through Tao, Qing, Shan, and An, and enters the Pingwang River to reach the sea. For the tank boats at that time, taking the Zhonghe River to the Zhongjiazhuang Gate could save the 22-mile dangerous road of the Yellow River.

Therefore, people at that time all praised, "Since the completion of the Zhonghe River, the momentum of killing the Yellow River and the disaster of the seven cities, the sails of the boats are as if they have passed the pillow mat. Those who say that the battle of the Zhonghe River is the benefit of the country for hundreds of generations. The contribution is not due to the meeting of the Song Dynasty." , Chen Xuan chiseled Qingjiang Puxia."

Chen Ding said deeply: "After a few years, the Yellow River will be safe and sound, and the shallow mud port will no longer be silted up. Even if it is heavily transported across the Huai River and sailed straight up, it will be a pity that it will be like walking on flat ground."

"It's a pity that your father and Jin Gong fell short in the end. They failed to continue to manage Huang Daye, and even ended up being dismissed." Ning Yu said lightly, he had no less grasp of these materials than Chen Ding.

Chen Ding sighed, and said in a low voice: "Your Majesty's words are true. In order to eradicate the floods of the Yellow River and the Huaihe River, my father and Jin Gong proposed to carry out a unified planning for the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and the Huaihe River. rule', but the Qing government thought that this strategy was useless, and it was a waste of money and food, which led to the impeachment of the court, so that Kangxi no longer trusted Jin Gong."

Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes, especially in the big project of harnessing the Yellow River, naturally there are countless people staring at it, and Jin Fu, as the governor of the river, was inevitably jealous of Kangxi.

In fact, since the 24th year of Kangxi, Jin Fu and Chen Huang's decision-making began to be opposed by the court, and the most terrible thing was that Emperor Kangxi no longer agreed with the methods of Jin and Chen. It was decided to divert the water released from the dam reduction dams in Gaoyou, Baoying and other counties into the sea, but Jin Fu did not agree with this matter, so Kangxi appointed Yu Chenglong, the inspector of Anhui at that time, to preside over it.

Although Yu Chenglong claims to be "the most honest official in the world", he is not a professional river management talent. Therefore, he advocates dredging the Haikou to release the accumulated water. Influx of Haikou will only cause the seawater to flow backwards, which is even more harmful. Therefore, the two have already begun to have disagreements on river governance.

In October of the 24th year of Kangxi, Kangxi called the two into the capital together, and discussed it with Jiuqing in detail. Originally, in the results of the first discussion, everyone believed that Jin Fu was a professional, but Yu Chenglong was very concerned about He Gong. Without experience, you should follow the advice of experts, but Kangxi was not pleased.

Later, people speculated that under the emperor's will, the general political envoy Cheng Qifan, Wang Youdan, Yushi Qian Jue and others began to support Yu Jackie Chan, and Sun Zaifeng, the minister of rites, was appointed as the host to open the sea, which made more people Launched an attack on Jin Fu, and even the Ministry of Industry also pointed out that Jin Fu had been managing the river for nine years, but he wasted money and food without success. Kangxi believed heavily.

In the first month of the 27th year of Kangxi, Guo Xiu, the censor of Jiangnan Road, impeached Jin Fuzhihe for many years, and blindly believed in Chen Huang's words. He used the title of the imperial court as a personal favor, and never received proper employment. In the end, he even accused Jin Fu of seizing the people's land, pretending to be reclamation, and selling rice and wheat across the border for personal gain.

In February, Liu Kai went up to impeach Jin Fu for improper employment and overstaffing, and Yu Shi Lu Zuxiu also impeached Jin Fu for "the accumulated evil has already been filled", thinking that Kangxi should kill Jin just like Shun killed Gun auxiliary.

For a while, Jin Fu became the target of public criticism, and was attacked by Guo Xiu, Liu Kai, Lu Zuxiu, Yu Chenglong, Mu Tianyan, and Sun Zaifeng, and suddenly became precarious, and Kangxi once again called the Great Scholars and Jiuqing to discuss this matter. During this meeting, Kangxi completely lost his trust in Jin Fu, and decided to dismiss Jin Fu and make Fujian Governor Wang Xinming the governor of the river, and Chen Huang's official title was also removed.

Chen Ding murmured: "My father doesn't value official position, but after he was dismissed, he could no longer rule the river with Jin Gong, and he fell short. He died soon after, leaving only the "He Fang" "Remarks" and "Summary of River Defense" in several volumes."

Ning Yu is silent, and the development of the matter is indeed the same. In order to please Jackie Chan, the new governor of the river, Wang Xinming, has made major changes to Jin Fu's river governance strategy, which even aroused Kangxi's dissatisfaction, thinking that what Yu Jackie said was pure nonsense, And Wang Xinming's actions are even more selfish, but the management of the Yellow River has finally stalled again.

Speaking of this, Chen Ding couldn't help but feel complacent and said: "Your Majesty, it's not that I don't want to serve the court, but river governance is the most difficult thing in the history. I really don’t want to end up like my father.”

"Chen Qing, I am not Kangxi, and I will never interfere with Chen Qing's river governance strategy. This matter is difficult and takes a long time. I know all of these. Even if I persist in doing it for 100 years, I think it should be done." of."

Ning Yu looked at Chen Ding with a frank expression, and took the other's hands, "Chen Qing doesn't need to worry about repeating the mistakes of his ancestors, as long as Chen Qing is willing to take this responsibility, I will be Chen Qing's most steadfast backing!"

"But... But Your Majesty, the policy of our ancestors back then may not be the policy that His Majesty needs."

Seeing that Chen Ding was still not at ease in his words, Ning Yu decided to let him know a little bit, and he said softly: "Actually, I really appreciate Chen Gong's policy of 'unified planning and governance from both origins and streams' back then. It takes the longest time and costs the most, but it is the strategy that can best reach the foundation of river governance, and it is somewhat similar to my current strategy!",

"Please enlighten me, Your Majesty." Chen Ding still saluted respectfully. This was definitely not a gift from a monarch or minister, but a thirst for knowledge.

Ning Yu said with emotion: "The reason why the Yellow River often floods is that the water level rises every year because of the sediment and sand, so that the floods flood and the Yellow River often diverts its course."

"In the second year of Jianyan, Du Chong dug a levee in Huazhou in order to resist the Jin invaders going south, causing the Yellow River to flow from the north to the Bohai Sea and to the south to the Yellow Sea. During the period when the Nanliu was blocked and the Nanliu seized the Huaihe River and flowed into the sea, the mainstream of the Yellow River below Zhengzhou and above Qingkou was also migrating erratically."

"Now the Yellow River either flows into the Huaihe River from Sishui, or flows into the Huaihe River from Bianshui, or flows into the Huaihe River from Weishui, or flows into the Huaihe River from Yingshui River, or flows into the Huaihe River in several branches at the same time. Now the terrain on both sides of the Yellow River has become higher in the south and lower in the north. In the future, it is only a matter of time before the Northern Judgment, this is like a sword hanging above our heads, it may fall down at any time!"

In fact, because Ning Yu doesn't know the history of the Yellow River governance, he still doesn't know the history of the government. After Jin Fu ruled the Yellow River, the Qing government failed to control the Haikou, which caused the Haikou to become silted and the river bottom to become higher. It is becoming more and more frequent, and it can be said that on average there is a breach every six months. Compared with the Ming Dynasty, it has gone from bad to worse.

What's more serious is that in the 19th century, the Yellow River suffered four major collapses in 1841, 1842, 1843, and 1851. It was not until 4 that the Yellow River was diverted again in Tongwaxiang on the north bank of Lanyang, Henan. But this time the Yellow River diverted the Daqing River in Shandong into the Bohai Sea, widening the mouth to seventy or eighty feet. Overnight, the Yellow River flooded the north, and many areas in the three provinces of Henan, Shandong, and Zhizhi became disaster areas, with as many as seventy-seven people affected. More than one million.

Although Ning Yu didn't know it, he also understood how difficult it is to get out of the current predicament. This is not only related to the Yellow River, but also the well-being of tens of millions of people.

"Exhausting the wealth of the world and giving it to the river, is there such a government in ancient and modern times?"

Ning Yu couldn't help but let out a soft sigh. He walked to the window of the car with his hands behind his back, listened to the whistling wind outside the window, and said in a low voice: "If we don't control the Yellow River from the source, even if we spend more money on it today , it will be a useless effort in the future, just like Jin and Chen Ergong back then, all their hard work turned into nothing."

Speaking of this, Ning Yu turned around, looked at Chen Ding with a firm expression, and said word by word.

"I will completely delegate power to you and give you 20 years to control the floods, and another 100 years to plant trees and restore the water and soil on both sides of the Yellow River and even the Loess Plateau. Only then will our children and grandchildren be truly safe and sound. worry!"

(End of this chapter)