prosperous age

“Is this the Yellow River Map?”

In the backyard of the Ministry of Works, a winding ditch made of sand and stones appeared in the eyes of Zhang Juzheng and Wei Guangde.

However, it was not them who spoke, but Zhang Siwei, the Grand Secretary of the Dongke.

Zhang Siwei was from Puzhou County, Pingyang Prefecture, Shanxi Province, so naturally he had different feelings towards this big river that flows through Shanxi.

In fact, Zhang Siwei had seen the Yellow River in Shanxi before. The entire river of muddy water was indeed shocking.

After all, the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River almost all flow on the Loess Plateau, which is precisely where soil erosion is most serious, directly coloring the Yellow River water.

The Yellow River's "J"-shaped river channel on the Loess Plateau is easier to identify, and even Zhang Siwei could roughly determine the approximate location of Shanxi on the map.

“How do you verify this?”

Zhang Siwei was very excited when he saw the map of the Yellow River, but Wei Guangde and Zhang Juzheng did not have such a feeling. After all, they had lived near the Yangtze River since they were young.

Well, it’s quite far from the Yellow River.

Even if you pass by the Yellow River on your way to the capital, you will not feel anything about the muddy yellow water.

However, the Yellow River is truly the mother river for the people living along its course, because it provides the water they need for survival.

Although perhaps most people in the Yellow River basin drink well water or water from tributaries, it is precisely because of the flow of this great river that the Yellow River water seeps into the ground and replenishes the groundwater level that they can draw water from their wells.

The Yellow River is the mother river of the northern land and deserves its name.

However, the purpose of the three cabinet ministers' visit this time was naturally not to see what the Yellow River looked like, but they came with a strong purpose, which was to see with their own eyes the experiments conducted by the Ministry of Works on the Yellow River.

It must be admitted that the sand table made by the Ministry of Industry is very exquisite. It not only depicts the Yellow River channel, but also small rivers along the way.

The weir mouth is also made into a square shape to facilitate blocking with stones.

"This is a sand table made by people sent by then Minister of Works Lei Shangshu in the 43rd year of Jiajing. At that time, the Yellow River flood recurred and became increasingly severe.

It was he who proposed the method of using sand table models to experiment with water control. Now we are just constantly revising the surrounding terrain, hoping to use this as a basis for judgment. "

Today, all the cabinet members came to the Ministry of Works. Zhu Heng, the Minister of Works, also came. Although the power has been transferred to Jiang Zhi, this occasion still needs to be presided over by him, the nominal Minister of Works.

"The river channel regularly measures the amount of water and sediment in the Yellow River and reports it to the river channel office and the Ministry of Works. Based on this, we can roughly estimate the condition of the river channel and carry out restoration."

Wei Guangde already knew that Zhu Heng still looked down upon Pan Jixun's "method of restraining water and attacking sand", believing that the consequences would be very bad and even lead to a catastrophe.

This is actually the reason why he came here today.

It can only be said that the collaboration with Pan Jixun to control floods in the 44th year of Jiajing really disgusted him. The struggle between the two men had penetrated deep into his bones. Even though he accepted Zhang Juzheng's re-employment of Pan Jixun to control floods, the prejudice still existed.

"According to the figures reported by the river, we will weigh the water and sand, mix them and pour them into the river, observe the sedimentation of the river sand, and finally drain the water and weigh the river sand in the river, so that we can roughly estimate the effect."

This was obviously not the first time Jiang Zhi had hosted such a test, and he was very familiar with the process.

In fact, making models for testing was very common in ancient times.

The major projects presided over by the Ministry of Works mainly involved the construction of palaces and imperial mausoleums. These would first be mapped out and then wooden models would be made. The Ministry of Works would not begin construction until the emperor approved.

However, river engineering is more complicated and large models are difficult to restore.

Therefore, although the Ministry of Works produced the "Yellow River Map", the news was rarely circulated to the outside world.

If Jiang Zhi had not told Wei Guangde that the Ministry of Industry had conducted many tests when he met him, Wei Guangde would not have known that the Ministry of Industry had this thing.

The reason he came here was actually more out of curiosity, wanting to see the overall appearance of the Yellow River in this era.

In later generations, such sand tables of the Yellow River are rare, but one can easily search for maps, or even satellite maps, to get a full picture.

However, the Yellow River had changed its course by then and no longer flowed through the Xuhuai River into the sea.

At this moment, Zhang Juzheng, like Zhang Siwei, walked slowly around the sand table, observing the terrain of the Yellow River, and was not in a hurry to ask the Ministry of Works for a demonstration.

Wei Guangde's attention was more focused on the lower reaches of the Yellow River, that is, the Xuhuai section. The river channel here was obviously higher than the surrounding ground and was in an uplifted state.

“Is the Yellow River’s course so obvious?”

Wei Guangde pointed at this section and asked suspiciously.

"The actual terrain is slightly flatter, but it's pretty much the same after shrinking."

Jiang Zhi spoke up.

Wei Guangde nodded slightly. When he got to the actual site, he might not be able to feel the bulge in the Yellow River channel, but after it shrank into a sand table, it would definitely be different.

After all, human vision is limited, which is why so many people in later generations like to play with drones. The feeling of overlooking the earth from a high altitude is something that cannot be felt at all on the ground.

And now when they look at the sand table, they feel this flavor.

After Zhang Juzheng finished looking at the sand table, he smiled and said to Zhu Heng: "We don't understand these either, so please ask Mr. Zhu to arrange for them to demonstrate."

"Okay, please wait for a moment, Mr.

Zhu Heng immediately ordered Jiang Zhi to start weighing the water and sand according to the Yellow River data reported recently by the river channel.

Jiang Zhi began to arrange people to weigh and prepare for the demonstration when Wei Guangde suddenly asked, "Brother Shinan, is there any particularity in weighing the water and sand of the Yellow River, such as predicting the weather?"

Wei Guangde vaguely remembered that there seemed to be such a scene in a TV series he watched in later generations.

It was a Qing Dynasty palace drama, I think it was called "The World's Granary". The Qing army had special soldiers responsible for fetching water and then weighing it, and based on this they would judge whether there would be flood or drought disasters.

After hearing Wei Guangde's question, Zhu Heng understood what he meant after just a little thought.

"The good loan must have been read in some miscellaneous books or heard from an old farmer."

"Can not remember."

In response to Zhu Heng's words, Wei Guangde shook his head to indicate that he could not remember clearly.

“This is true, but it is not a prediction, but a judgment of the current situation.

There are similar sayings in the countryside, such as "the water in the late summer weighs one penny, and the drought lasts until the middle of August", which actually means weighing water.

Determine whether drought is occurring based on the weight of the water.

Take the water of the Yellow River for example. The heavier a pot of water is, the more sand it contains, which means there is more rain.

If the water is light, it means the sand content is less, which means the weather is drier and drought may occur.

In the past, the River Administration would also observe the changes in the Fushui and Qiushui rivers, but this is no longer done so much.

After all, disaster management is not within the responsibilities of the river administration office, and local government officials are responsible for it. "

Zhu Heng's words were very simple, but Wei Guangde still guessed the official trick. It should be that the river channel was reported in the past, which aroused the dissatisfaction of local officials, so they stopped being the "bad guy" later. In ancient times, some officials would really lie about disasters for their own selfish reasons.

Wei Guangde understood a little bit. According to what Zhu Heng said, he could also roughly understand the so-called scientific principle of weighing water.

First of all, the weight of a unit volume of the Yellow River water can reflect the specific gravity of sand in the water. If the water is heavier, it means that the Yellow River water contains a lot of sand. Conversely, if the water is lighter, it means that the sand content has decreased.

Secondly, the amount of sand content is affected by flow velocity and flow rate. The larger the flow rate, the faster the flow rate. The faster the flow rate, the stronger the erosion power of the river water on the area it flows through, and more sand is transported.

Thirdly, the size of the flow is subject to rainfall. If the rainfall is large, the river will be replenished more, thereby increasing the flow. Conversely, if the rainfall is small, the river flow will be small.

Finally, we can infer reversely that because the weight of the water representing the month becomes lighter month by month, it means that the sand content is getting smaller, and then the rainfall is getting smaller, which means that there may be a drought. On the contrary, if there is more precipitation, more sand is carried away, and the water is naturally heavier.

"So, by weighing the water, especially the Fushui and Qiushui, we should be able to roughly estimate whether the grain production in the Yellow River Basin is increasing or decreasing?"

Wei Guangde asked again hesitantly.

This time, Zhu Heng thought for a moment before answering: "It may not be accurate, but it does make sense."

"Then let the river know and have them take water and weigh it regularly and report it to the cabinet."

Zhang Juzheng, who was standing next to him, probably didn't know about this. But after hearing the conversation between Wei Guangde and Jiang Zhi, he knew there was such a way to predict the grain harvest, so he naturally became interested and immediately asked the River Channel Office to resume this work.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

Wei Guangde actually wanted to ask if this could be used to predict next year's weather, but after thinking about it, he felt that it was impossible.

It would be great if we could know the approximate results of summer grain and autumn harvest by weighing water.

After all, in ancient times, grain production was crucial to a dynasty.

Among the annual taxes levied by the Ming Dynasty, grain was still the most important part, and the taxes in kind were too much.

Of course, we can’t say this is a bad thing.

A very important change in Zhang Juzheng's reform was to convert some in-kind taxes into silver, which did increase the court's fiscal revenue on the surface. However, correspondingly, with more silver, the court had less grain to allocate.

There is always a gain and a loss, and perhaps this was one of the factors that led Emperor Wanli to overthrow Zhang Juzheng's reforms.

Wei Guangde naturally has a different opinion on this.

In fact, the two people argued about this many times in private.

Although the reform envisioned by Zhang Juzheng did not completely abolish in-kind taxes, it only changed the collection of most taxes to silver. However, some areas continued to collect in-kind taxes. For example, the land tax in Suzhou and Hangzhou was still collected in kind to provide food for the royal family.

This reform alleviated the transportation burden of farmers to a certain extent, but it also led to the concentration of silver in the hands of merchants, increasing the space for merchants to exploit farmers.

For this reason, Wei Guangde bluntly proposed that it would be fine for Jiangxi and Nanzhili to act in this way, but what would be the result if the whole Ming Dynasty did so?
In order to pay taxes, the common people could only sell their harvested grain to merchants in exchange for copper coins, then for silver, and finally pay taxes to the court.

During the harvest season, when people sell grain collectively, the price of grain will be extremely low.

Wei Guangde clearly remembers the text about buying grain that he read when he was a child. He thought that if there was a good harvest, he could sell more grain to improve his family's life. However, when he transported the grain to the city, he found out that the price of grain had plummeted.

It can be said that with such reforms, not only would farmers have a hard time making ends meet in years of famine, but even in years of bumper harvests, they would find it difficult to obtain enough money and food.

Wei Guangde's words at that time served as a reminder to Zhang Juzheng. In the past few days, he has been thinking about the adjustments that need to be made to the Single Whip System.

At the very least, Wei Guangde demanded a dual-track system, whereby farmers could choose to pay taxes in kind or in silver.

It’s just that “labor service” is all paid in silver.

At this time, Jiang Zhi was also ready. After Zhang Juzheng gave the order, more than ten officials took golden bottles of different sizes and began to pour water into the Yellow River.

The mouths of these golden bottles can be adjusted in size to accommodate different amounts of water.

As the yellow water poured into the river, it quickly flowed downstream to the place representing Xu Huai.

The measured water continued to gather in the river channel and gradually filled the river channel.

“Is this Hongze Lake?”

Seeing a puddle of clear water, Wei Guangde pointed and asked.

The truth is that there is not as many lakes on the Yellow River as there are on the Yangtze River, and it seems that this is the only lake there is.

In fact, Hongze Lake did not exist originally. It was artificially created purely because of the existence of Gaojiayan.

"Yes, the bluestone over there has been blocked and will be removed when the river is flushed."

Zhu Heng was also explaining to Wei Guangde, Zhang Juzheng and others.

Jiang Zhi kept directing the officials from the Ministry of Works to pump water into the river. The silt in the water was visibly accumulating in the river.

For the middle and lower reaches, nature is the focus of observation, but what catches the eye at this time is a layer of mud and sand at the bottom of the river.

However, relatively speaking, the water volume is still abundant at this time, so the sedimentation of silt is still acceptable.

However, in the downstream, with the emergence of two representative canal water sections, the river water volume decreased, and from this section onwards, the silt deposited increased significantly.

Seeing this, everyone understood that the reason why the Yellow River was experiencing more and more floods was actually the consequence of replenishing water into the canal.

Otherwise, the lower reaches of the river should be the same as the middle reaches, with only some silt deposited, and there would definitely not be such large-scale siltation as it is now.

Later, when the method of restraining water and attacking sand began to be demonstrated, some officials took away the bluestone representing Gaojia Weir, and the water injected into Hongze Lake quickly flowed into the lower reaches of the Yellow River.

Although some of the deposited surface silt was carried away, there was still a lot of silt on the riverbed. Most of the silt that was carried away was not flushed out, but accumulated near the mouth of the Yellow River.

When the water in the puddle representing Hongze Lake gradually dried up, the bluestone was put down again, which also indicated the beginning of a new round of water storage.

"We just completed one cycle. We need to do this demonstration several or even dozens of times."

Zhu Heng explained on the side.

“Does one time mean one year?”

Zhang Siwei interrupted and asked.

“That’s about it.

But in actual operation, it depends on the situation. If there is a flood in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River, we will start to open the gates to release water to wash away the Yellow River."

Zhu Heng explained.

Although only the first cycle was carried out, both Wei Guangde and Zhang Juzheng had actually noticed that there was obvious accumulation of yellow sand in the river section near Huai'an downstream.

After Zhu Heng found out, he said: "This is also what Chief Cen and his colleagues thought. The siltation in the middle and lower reaches will cause the slope of the river to decrease, and the silt will eventually be blocked near the downstream estuary.

If this continues, this place will be flooded all year round.

The main reason is that the water volume of the Yellow River and Huai River has decreased due to the economic transportation. If the canal is abandoned, the situation may improve. " (End of this chapter)