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Chapter 168: Passive Slowdown
Since there were officials ahead, Lu Qing felt relieved.

He called on the others to mount their horses and head in the direction the two men had pointed out to him.

After walking for about another stick of incense, the rain that had been falling continuously gradually stopped. Although the sky was still gloomy, a few rays of light rarely appeared from between the clouds, as if someone had strung a few faint golden threads through the dark clouds.

There were more and more people in front. From a distance, you could see a group of strong men digging a ditch that was half a person's depth. Those people were almost covered in mud from head to toe. From a distance, they looked like a group of mud figures that had become spirits.

They put the soil dug out from the deep pit into baskets. The people standing on the baskets pulled the ropes on the baskets together to lift the soil up and pile it aside.

A few feet away from them, another group of strong men, also bareback, were using the stones that the farmers had just brought up to carefully build two stone walls on both sides of the ditch.

"How come this canal..." Zhu Yu didn't know much about canal construction and water control, but she remembered very clearly the direction of the riverbeds of the rivers passing through Huazhou during her journey.

According to the purpose of building the canal, in a place like Huazhou, which is relatively dry and rainy in normal years, the primary purpose of building the canal seems to be to divert the more abundant river water from Lizhou to this side through the canal, so as to avoid drought that makes it impossible to farm and grow crops normally, affecting the harvest.

Taking into account the strange weather this year, Huazhou has been experiencing continuous rain for months. The rush to build canals is naturally mainly for the purpose of drainage, so as to drain the water accumulated in the flooded land to the downstream as soon as possible and relieve the local flood disaster.

Along the way, they also saw several sections of repaired canals, which had already diverted some of the water from the nearby rivers. Normally, this area was downstream, and even the farmland was silted up with a lot of water. According to the topography here, this canal should not be across in front of them, but should be dug vertically along the terrain.

But now they are clearly taking a "beating around the bush".

It can't be that they were sent by the imperial court, who, for some purpose, deceived their superiors and subordinates, pretended to obey but actually disobeyed, and deliberately slacked off, making these poor local people work in vain?
Zhu Yu's guess was quickly ruled out.

They walked forward for a while, and Lu Qing suddenly pointed towards a place not far away.

Zhu Yu looked in the direction of his finger and saw a group of people busy at the canal over there. At first glance, it looked no different from anywhere else.

But her attention was soon drawn to several people over there.

A man who looked to be about forty years old, wearing a short, wet, muddy coarse cloth shirt with his sleeves rolled up above his elbows, was picking up heavy stones one by one and putting them into an earthen basket. He then lowered the basket to the bottom of the pit with a rope so that the people below could use it to build a stone wall.

This is actually quite ordinary, but the three or four people busying around behind this person look really eye-catching.

Those people were all wearing dirty and wet coarse cloth clothes, and there was nothing unusual about their faces. However, when they worked together with the man standing by the canal, they were indescribably fearful, as if they were afraid that the other party would make a mistake.

"The one with the round face and round eyes is Duan Jingchuan, the doctor of the Ministry of Water Resources. The short guy behind him is E Ming, the deputy director of the Ministry of Water Resources." Lu Qing leaned over on his horse and introduced Zhu Yu, "I don't recognize the guy behind him, but he's probably the water official from the Huazhou government office.

So, you can guess who that person is in front, right?" Zhu Yu suddenly realized.

If the two people at the back who were extremely apprehensive were the Langzhong and Yuanwailang of the Ministry of Water Resources who were in charge of water conservancy under the Ministry of Works, then the one in the front who was working harder than anyone else and who could be treated so carefully by these two people could only be Bai Qihong, the Assistant Minister of the Ministry of Works.

When Zhu Yu realized that the man was Bai Qihong, he was really surprised.

She had met Duke Yan several times before, and he always gave people the impression of being superior and arrogant. It seemed that he didn't care about anyone else except Emperor Jin and Lu Zhang.

Especially when Cao Tianbao's nephew got into trouble, Zhao Bi's attitude of not treating ordinary people as human beings was almost undisguised.

His eldest grandson, Zhao Boce, was not so obvious in his behavior due to his young age, but he also looked like a superior person, sitting high in the clouds and with his feet not touching the ground.

As a result, even though Zhu Yu had never met other relatives of the Duke of Yan's family, he had already made a preconceived notion that all the descendants of the Duke of Yan who were related to Zhao Bi must have similar temperaments and behavior.

When Fu Wen came back that day to say that Duke Yan's second son-in-law Bai Qihong did not attend Lu Zhang's wedding banquet with his father-in-law and wife, but received an imperial order to supervise the repair of the canal in Huazhou, Zhu Yu just thought that this person lived in the place arranged by the provincial government every day, was well fed and served, and occasionally went down to inspect and write a letter to Emperor Jin to report the progress with exaggerations.

Now she suddenly realized that the middle-aged man who worked with everyone and even worked harder than some craftsmen was actually the son-in-law of Duke Yan. This really made her jaw drop.

"Let's go and say hello." Lu Qing's eyes lit up again when he saw Bai Qihong busy.

The road ahead was not so easy to walk on. There were many people coming and going carrying stones and soil. Five people were leading horses towards that side.

The canal was full of busy people, so when the five people walked towards Bai Qihong, no one paid attention at first. It was not until Lu Qing and the others were only a few steps away from those people that the sound of horse hooves finally attracted the attention of Duan Jingchuan, the round-faced doctor from the Water Department.

He turned around and looked warily at the strangers who had approached him with their horses, their Taoist robes covered with oilskins. "What do you do? What are you doing here?"

Bai Qihong had just put a basket of stones into the pit with the Water Department's Deputy Director. When he heard the Water Department's Deputy Director talking to someone in a rather unceremonious tone, he turned around and looked behind him.

The moment he saw Lu Qing, he was stunned for a moment, as if a little uncertain, thinking that he must have seen it wrong. He couldn't help but turn around and stare at Lu Qing carefully.

Lu Qing smiled and bowed to him: "Minister Bai, long time no see!
The last time we met was on Duke Yan's birthday. It's been a long time since then, and I didn't expect to meet you here today."

　Thanks to Colors_Y for the monthly ticket!
　　(End of this chapter)