Returning to hometown to farm: The apocalypse system arrived ten years earlier?

Chapter 328 The Roar of the Yellow River - The Manifestation of the Earthly Pivot
The difficulty of dredging the Yellow River is self-evident, as evidenced by the following poem:
"A perilous pass, splitting rocks and piercing clouds, a raging torrent of snow-covered cliffs; a hanging river, precarious as a sword, locked in deep silt, forming a hill. The flood peak, with its force, is like a wild horse breaking free, the old course shifts, causing sorrow for the people; a thousand years of accumulated troubles startle thousands of miles away, the earth's pivot is hard to tame, a water dragon coiled."

Over the past two thousand years, the Yellow River has undergone six major course changes, the most recent of which occurred during the Ming and Qing dynasties, when the Yellow River changed its course from flowing south into the Yellow Sea to flowing north into the Bohai Sea.

The dry season is characterized by drought, while the rainy season is marked by floods. The upstream section is treacherous and the water is turbulent, while the downstream section is an 800-mile-long suspended river.

To date, the problem of flooding in the Yellow River has not been truly solved.

Especially in the Kaifeng and Xinxiang areas, the highest points of the suspended river are 13 meters and 23 meters above the ground respectively, truly making the "Yellow River flow from the sky." Once the river swells and the dikes breach, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Many people have proposed solutions, the most notable of which is to redirect the Yellow River to its original course during the Ming and Qing dynasties, dredge it to make it navigable, and simultaneously level the 800-mile stretch of suspended river, thus completely solving the problem.

However, the real challenges are much greater than that.

First, why did the Yellow River change its course? It was because the original riverbed was silted up, becoming a river above ground. After the dikes were breached, the water flowed downhill, causing the river to change its course.

The original riverbed was 4 meters higher than the ground on average, so even if the original course were restored, the amount of work involved would not be much less.

Secondly, after so many years of changes in the Yellow River's course, less than one-third of the original 728.3-kilometer old course has been completely preserved, with other parts having long been repurposed.

For example, in Dangshan County, the 46.6-kilometer old course of the Yellow River is covered with yellow sand. In order to control the sand, the locals chose to plant drought-resistant pear trees. Today, the coverage rate of pear trees exceeds 70%, and Dangshan pears are sold all over the country and have a very high reputation.

Furthermore, more than 10 natural scenic spots have been developed along the old course of the Yellow River in Dangshan, including "Black Dragon Covered in Snow," "Old Yellow River Reflecting Snow," "King of Pear Trees," and "Pear Capital Museum." During the Dangshan Pear Blossom Festival in 2016, the number of tourists visiting Dangshan exceeded 60, and the total tourism revenue exceeded 2.4 million yuan.

They cleared it and restored it to a riverbed?

Obviously unrealistic.

In fact, the Yellow River has been under management for some time, such as the water and sediment regulation measures of the Xiaolangdi Project. However, it takes time, and there may be significant effects decades later. But there will be a major flood the following summer, and we can't wait any longer.

Li Xiang stood beside Hukou Waterfall, gazing at the rushing water, his thoughts racing.

He moved swiftly and arrived at the source of the Yellow River. He used the Earth Escape Technique to travel down the Yellow River waterway. During his escape, his ability to sense the earth's veins was fully activated, covering an area of ​​35 kilometers.

They spent two days and two nights carefully surveying the area from the source of the Yellow River to its mouth at the Bohai Sea, gathering a wealth of information.

Afterwards, he went to the capital and, in Jiang Cai'er's study, took out his laptop and began writing a proposal.

Jiang Cai'er was naturally very happy to see him, but she was busy with an important project and didn't have time to spend with Li Xiang.

"I don't need you to come with me. In a couple of days, after I've finished writing the proposal, you can help me revise and optimize it."

The main reason is that Jiang Cai'er is too busy, and Li Xiang doesn't want to take up too much of her time. Otherwise, he could just take Jiang Cai'er to the site for exploration and let her come up with a solution directly, which would save a lot of trouble.

However, Li Xiang felt that he couldn't rely entirely on his wife; he also needed to prove himself. He couldn't let Jiang Cai'er think he was a physically strong but mentally challenged person.

Therefore, he wrote the proposal with great care.

How could such a massive project as dredging the Yellow River be undertaken without any preparation, just rushing in and starting right away? In many places in the upstream canyon section, the rock strata are fractured, and there are numerous potential landslide hazards. If not handled properly, it could backfire.

Li Xiang spent two days writing it out, and then he brought Jiang Cai'er over. Jiang Cai'er spent half a day helping Li Xiang revise it, and finally a very efficient and perfect dredging plan was formed.

Such a high-level plan is something most people couldn't write.

It is divided into five parts.

The first part is upstream governance: adopting a cascade regulation system, including two major components: "rock vein reshaping" and "cascade dam group".

The “rock vein reshaping” involves three points. First, the “earth vein perception capability” is used to scan the rock strata of the canyon section to locate potential landslide sites and narrow sections of the river channel, which are then marked in the plan.

Secondly, the steep riverbank was transformed into a stepped gentle slope (slope ≤15°) using "rock armor shaping" and natural basalt revetment was embedded at the same time to reduce the impact of water flow.

Secondly, "ground-hub diversion columns" are constructed below rapid sections such as Hukou Waterfall to form a spiral energy dissipation structure by directionally releasing soil energy, thereby reducing the turbulence of the water flow.

The "cascade dam group" consists of two parts. First, at key nodes such as Longyangxia and Liujiaxia, deep granite is extracted using "geode siphon" technology to cast honeycomb-shaped permeable ecological dam bodies (which also serve as flood control and fish migration channels). Second, a spiritual matrix is ​​pre-embedded inside the dam body, which can activate "rock armor proliferation" during the flood season to temporarily raise the dam body, and shrink to restore the navigable water level during the dry season.

The second part is the riverbed subsidence project for the management of the middle and lower reaches of the suspended river: using the "Earth Pivot Evolution Record" ability, the silt from the lower riverbed is collected into an other-dimensional warehouse, and then travels at a speed of Mach 20 to the depths of the Pacific Ocean to shake the silt into the sea.

Riverbed silt contains a large amount of sand. However, after being washed and deposited by the Yellow River, this sand has a very smooth surface and is usually less than 0.3 mm in diameter. If it is used to mix concrete, it will cause problems such as insufficient cohesion and thinning of the mortar, making it unsuitable for building construction.

Moreover, the quantity was too large; even Li Xiang's warehouse couldn't store it all, so he simply threw it away.

According to Li Xiang's estimate, the 800-li suspended river, assuming an average height of five meters and a width of 0.8 kilometers, would require a total of 32 trillion cubic meters of excavated earth.

Li Xiang's current warehouse has a volume of 5497.6 billion cubic meters, and it also contains a large amount of materials. Only about half of the space is available for transporting mud and sand. To prevent pollution, a relatively wide buffer zone must also be left in the middle. If he transports 2000 billion cubic meters at a time, it would take 160 trips to transport 32 trillion cubic meters.

This transport capacity is astonishing. Of course, if he upgrades it again and expands the warehouse during the dredging of the Yellow River, then he will need to make fewer trips.

However, at a speed of Mach 20, it wouldn't take long to travel to the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

During the dredging process, a "reverse gravity field loading" was simultaneously applied to the Kaifeng-Zhengzhou section, using a massive force of 350,000 jin (125,000 kg) in conjunction with soil-based energy to compress the soft soil layer at the bottom of the riverbed, causing the suspended river section to settle by 3-5 meters.

In addition, a parallel underground flood diversion channel will be opened downstream of Zhengzhou, and a fully enclosed basalt tunnel (with a designed inner diameter of 80 meters) will be constructed using "rock vein shaping".

The main channel is dedicated to navigation (water depth ≥ 4 meters), while the flood diversion channel is linked with intelligent earth gates, which automatically open to divert water during the flood season to avoid the risk of overflowing the dikes.

Parts three, four, and five cover topics such as ecological and shipping synergy, disaster preparedness and enhanced dike protection measures, implementation plans, and effectiveness predictions, which will not be detailed here.

However, two points are worth mentioning. First, Jiang Cai'er used a quantum computer to help Li Xiang design a hydrological model, which dynamically adjusts the river channel curvature through "earth vein resonance" to optimize the efficiency of ship passage.

Secondly, Jiang Cai'er suggested that Zhao Xueqing participate in the project.

Zhao Xueqing is proficient in plant-based supernatural abilities. Her "spiritual plant synesthesia" can help quickly screen salt-tolerant plants, implant root-based soil-fixing gene chains into the reshaped riverbank, and build a 200-meter-wide ecological buffer zone.

Simultaneously, Li Xiang laid a "crystal vein filter layer" at the bottom of the riverbed to adsorb heavy metal pollution and release minerals, restoring the water's self-purification ability.

The crystal particle structure of the crystal vein filter layer was also designed by Jiang Cai'er, and Li Xiang was responsible for implementing it using earth-based supernatural abilities.

After dredging, the navigation capacity will allow 5000-ton vessels to travel directly from Zhengzhou to the Bohai Sea (previously only 200-ton vessels were allowed to pass through certain sections of the river), and the flood control standard will be raised from once in a century to once in a millennium.

This plan fully utilizes Li Xiang's super-fast movement, interdimensional warehouse, immense strength manipulation, and earth-based fine shaping abilities to compress a super project that would normally take decades into a monthly cycle. If implemented, it would be sufficient to combat the super flood before the apocalypse.

"Let me make another PowerPoint presentation for you."

Jiang Cai'er is a helpful person who goes all the way. She is an exceptionally intelligent and scientific researcher. She is also a first-rate PPT creator. After joining the National Key Laboratory of Tsinghua University, she often creates PPTs, participates in group meetings, and gives reports at the group meetings. She speaks eloquently and is well loved by everyone.

In particular, her spoken English has improved rapidly. Sometimes, when foreign research teams come to conduct academic exchanges, Jiang Cai'er explains everything in English, which has earned her frequent praise from experts at home and abroad.

She's just an 18-year-old girl, only in her first semester of university. Foreign experts are astonished; how come China always seems to produce geniuses?
As is well known, the reason why the United States' military has fallen behind in recent years is mainly because it expelled Chinese engineers and made good use of Indian engineers. The native white and Jewish people of the United States are first-rate in finance, but not good at military and aerospace.

Even the Minuteman-3 was designed by a Chinese-American scientist, from the same school as the father of the Dongfeng missile.

Jiang Cai'er's amazing performance attracted the attention of some foreign experts. A bigwig privately invited her to study at a prestigious American university, offering a huge scholarship, which Jiang Cai'er naturally declined.

Li Xiang sent the Yellow River dredging plan and PPT to a mysterious email address, then spent a relaxing day with Jiang Cai'er. The next evening around 8 p.m., he made another mysterious phone call.

He had been granted access to this phone number for private calls ever since his first meeting with that person in the capital, but he had never contacted them proactively before; this was the first time.

As soon as the call went through, the usually calm and collected voice on the other end betrayed a hint of excitement.

"Oh, it's Xiang-ge'er. How have you been lately?" The man was as friendly as ever.

"Thank you for your concern, it's fine," Li Xiang said.

Everyone's time is precious, so after a brief exchange of pleasantries, Li Xiang got straight to the point and explained his Yellow River dredging plan.

The reason it is divided into two sections is because the water conditions and geological conditions are different in the upstream and downstream areas.

The other person listened attentively, asking questions and discussing things with Li Xiang from time to time.

Finally, he said six words: "I trust you to handle things."

After hanging up the phone, the person was quite happy: "Brother Xiang has a strong sense of national responsibility; he was a great help."

A moment later, he made another phone call, giving instructions on various matters and urging him to cooperate fully with Li Xiang's work.

Dredging the Yellow River was such a massive undertaking that it couldn't be kept secret from the public; therefore, Li Xiang needed someone to handle the aftermath. This was why he submitted the plan. ...

Meanwhile, the atmosphere in the third conference room of the National Major Water Conservancy Project Command was rather somber.

Chief Engineer Zhou Zhengyang slammed his fist on the intelligent conference table, causing ripples to spread across the holographic sand table. Coffee stains stained the cuffs of his dark gray uniform, and his knuckles, worn from prolonged use of the stylus, were bluish-white. "This is the sixth version of the plan that has been rejected by the central government!"

The people below were terrified and fell silent.

Zhou Zhengyang was furious: "It's been so long, and the plan still hasn't been finalized. What have you all been doing?"

Someone whispered, "It's not that we can't make a decision; we've already submitted several drafts."

"Can a solution that can't solve the problem, a solution that's been repeatedly rejected, even be called a solution? According to your previous solutions, by the time you finish dredging, the great flood will have passed for several years."

"There might not necessarily be a major flood," someone muttered.

"Not necessarily? People all over the world are preparing for war, and you're telling me it's not certain? If there really is a major flood, can you bear the responsibility?"

"Do you know why it's called 'Suspended River'? It's not a river suspended in the air, but a guillotine hanging over the heads of 300 million people in North China!"

Everyone fell silent; you could hear a pin drop in the conference room.

After a while, Cheng Mo, a young engineer in a corner, couldn't help but complain: "Engineer Zhou, for the Kaifeng section of the suspended river subsidence project, we can really only clean 50,000 cubic meters of silt every day. That's the limit. We really can't do any more. It's not that we don't want to do it."

"The limit?" Zhou Zhengyang grabbed a laser pointer and pointed it at the large screen, instantly magnifying the cross-section of the Kaifeng section of the riverbed twenty times. "Do you know how much higher the suspended riverbed is than the urban area of ​​Zhengzhou? Twenty-three meters! Do you know how thick the silt and gelatinous layer at the bottom of the river is?"

He grabbed the test report from the corner of the table and threw it: "Forty-two meters! Forty-two meters!"

The document grazed past Cheng Mo's ear, then shattered into snowflakes upon hitting the bulletproof glass.

“Engineer Zhou, we’ve tried the new type of hardener.” Senior engineer Lin Xue handed over a tablet, her fingertips tracing a video of collapsed slopes. “But the silt has a water content of over 75%, and the solidified material can’t withstand more than three tides…”

Seeing that Zhou Zhengyang was about to lose his temper again, the old engineer Wang Zhenguo grabbed his thermos and took a swig of cold tea: "Old Zhou, turn it down."

Zhou Zhengyang: "Let's not talk about that. Let's talk about the data from the Lankao experimental field. What kind of bullshit data is this? The survival rate of the newly transplanted reeds is less than 3%."

The usually mild-mannered Zhou Zhengyang has been using a lot of profanity lately.

Just then, Zhou Zhengyang's phone rang. He answered it, and after a few words, his face showed endless astonishment, which then turned into endless joy!

"Okay, okay, we will definitely cooperate fully." Zhou Zhengyang nodded repeatedly, grinning from ear to ear. This hot potato had finally been taken over by someone else, and it was that same person again.

It's incredible.

After hanging up the phone, Zhou Zhengyang looked delighted, while the people in the conference room exchanged bewildered glances.

Zhou Zhengyang: "What you can't do, someone else has done."

"what?"

The entire audience was shocked, their faces filled with disbelief.

"Engineer Zhou, what exactly happened? How did they manage to do that?"

"Yes, who is so amazing? If they can really do it, I will be completely in awe."

"We were told to work as his assistants and cooperate fully. However, everyone had to sign a confidentiality agreement, the highest level, and anyone who leaked information would bear the consequences."

Everyone: "..."

……

Three days later, Li Xiang started work. It was a one-man project.

Unauthorized personnel are strictly prohibited from approaching the area where he is located. Relevant department personnel are assisting in the surrounding area.

Longyang Gorge, upper reaches of the Yellow River.

Li Xiang stood on the suspended rock platform, his earth-yellow spiritual energy spreading like a spider web from the soles of his feet to the cliff a thousand meters away. The roaring sound of the water in the canyon was drowned out by a deep hum—the power of the "Earth Pivot Evolution Record" enveloped the entire mountain.

"Crack!"

The steep rock face suddenly softened like mud, and hundreds of thousands of tons of granite, under the pull of Li Xiang's supernatural power, were like tofu being sculpted by an invisible chisel, with the stepped slope extending towards the riverbank at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Engineer Zhang, who was surveying in the canyon, stumbled backward, unaware that his safety helmet had rolled off: "This...is this really something that can be done by human power?"

Hukou Waterfall.

Beneath the misty waterfall, Li Xiang clasped his hands together and pressed down sharply, causing seven basalt giants, each a hundred meters tall, to burst forth from the water, their spiral patterns shimmering with a faint blue light as they were swept away by the turbulent current.

In the drone footage, the waterfall, which originally cascaded vertically, was cut into dozens of arc-shaped water curtains by the pillar, and rainbows flowed where the water splashed.

An elderly engineer, trembling, lit a cigarette while watching from the riverbank. He took a deep drag. This was his hometown, and he had dedicated his entire life to the Yellow River's management: "The worry that has weighed on my mind for half my life can finally be put to rest..."

Three drones hovered, recording every scene from different perspectives.

Such a magnificent project naturally attracted the attention of CCTV reporters who followed the entire process to film a documentary, which will be kept in the National Archives and recorded in history books.

This was done with Li Xiang's consent.

After all, who wouldn't want to be remembered in history?

Throughout history, all those who have made contributions to the management of the Yellow River have been recorded in history.

The mysterious armored man has "become famous overseas," with many foreigners claiming that he is Chinese. Initially, most people in China did not believe it, including some of those involved in the operation, who thought it was pure nonsense and a slander by foreigners.

But seeing Li Xiang's display of power, they naturally believed it all.

However, everyone signed a confidentiality agreement and is prohibited from disclosing the information. It's not time to declassify it yet.

As for Li Xiang's global scavenging of resources, he only scavenged resources from foreign races, and those with whom he had poor relations. He never caused any trouble within China.

Of course, some people, with a saintly heart, felt that Li Xiang was wrong and clamored that it was blatant robbery and morally reprehensible.

What those people don't know is that the United States has been exploiting the dollar's hegemonic system to reap the benefits of the world for decades, causing many countries' economies to collapse or even go bankrupt. The damage it caused was far greater than Li Xiang's. Perhaps because its financial methods are more sophisticated and incomprehensible to the average person, the fact of its exploitation is undeniable. Li Xiang's approach was simply more direct, but the essence is the same.

Why can the great United States do it, but Li Xiang can't?
Furthermore, the United States also has many direct moments, such as "I steal oil for the country" (a popular online song based on realism).

Moreover, Li Xiang targets industries owned by conglomerates, while countries exploited by the United States suffer from currency devaluation, stock and real estate market crashes, soaring prices, and even constant warfare, leading to widespread poverty and greater harm to ordinary people.

Li Xiang wasn't just buying them for free; he had his own plans. In the future, some of those supplies would be given back to survivors abroad during times of crisis to help them get through difficult times.

If we don't collect them during peacetime, given the nature of many foreign countries, they will face national extinction and annihilation.

Li Xiang wasn't a saint; he simply felt that the world was interconnected. If there were more resistance forces globally, the pressure domestically would be less. In the fight against the alien space monsters, everyone was on the same side.

The section of the suspended river in Kaifeng.

Under the moonlight, amidst the silt of the riverbed, Li Xiang, clad in the Giant Whale Holy Armor, stood with a serious expression. A dimensional vortex tore open a dark crack in the riverbed, drawing in centuries-old, dark brown silt into the void under the pull of powerful earth-elemental abilities.

The riverbed was sinking at a rate of three centimeters per minute, and the red alarm lights on the monitoring instruments on the embankment gradually turned green. Li Dahe, the old river worker on night watch, suddenly knelt down and wept bitterly—beneath his feet, the turbid Yellow River water was losing its violent yellowish-brown color.

This old river worker comes from a family that has been dedicated to this post for three generations, working diligently day in and day out for decades. Even though the Yellow River will be thoroughly cleaned up in the future, he will still devote himself to maintenance work, so he has been included in the program.

Although the Yellow River will freeze after the apocalypse, it has withstood a massive flood and extreme weather in the coming years, making this restoration project quite worthwhile.

Zhengzhou Flood Diversion Tunnel.

At three in the morning on the riverbank, Li Xiang flicked his finger, and the 80-meter-diameter basalt tunnel burst forth from the earth like a giant python. Construction team leader Zhao Gang's powerful flashlight swept across the tunnel's inner walls, the naturally formed impermeable crystalline layer refracting starlight-like fragments of light. In the darkness, two night herons took flight, their claws gripping the Yellow River carp they had just caught, which thrashed and plunged into the main channel, splashing water near the fluorescent marking on the water level gauge indicating "navigable depth 4.2 meters."

(End of this chapter)