In the Ming Dynasty, if a minister encountered an emergency, he could temporarily embezzle money and grain.

For example, at this time, Wang Qiong, the head of the household department, was already the left servant of the household six years ago, and was transferred to the ministry five years ago because of the emperor's appreciation. At this time, because the border ministers urgently embezzled the Taicang silver and did not return it within the time limit, Wang Qiong, who had been transferred from the household department to the ministry, was also held accountable and thrown to Nanjing for a leisurely meal.

Wang Yuan is now patrolling the river under the emperor's order, and Wang Qiong, the head of the household department, is counted as his own person, and it is still very easy to apply for project funds. Anyway, these grains and some of the customs silver will have to be shipped to Beijing sooner or later, and it is more convenient to pay directly in Linqing.

It was more difficult to deal with the banknote customs, and the officials in charge were reluctant, but they still promised to give some, as long as Wang Yuan signed and drew the pledge.

The grain was unexpectedly smooth, and the generals of the river section were eager to hand over all the grain to Wang Yuan immediately. This guy has been fined for three months because of the delay, and he saw that he was open to navigation again, and he was blocked again in a few days!

Previously, the voyage was cut off because of flooding.

Now the navigation is cut off because the river control in Henan has been effective. Liu Kai, the governor of the river, dug the river on the south bank to discharge the floodwater, and repaired a dam on the north bank to block the breach, reducing the amount of water that had spread to Shandong and accelerating the accumulation of sediment in the Wei River.

As a result, the river near Linqing is now blocked in a large area, and the boats and merchant ships have to run aground from time to time.

The further back the time goes, the more silted up the river becomes, because the dry season is approaching. If the dredging work is not completed, shipping will have to resume until next spring, when the rain increases.

There were several months in between, which was enough to deduct a year's salary from this Cao Yun general. If it causes a food shortage in the capital, most of them will be condemned and imprisoned!

"Master Wang, how much food do you need?" Liang Xi asked.

Wang Yuan said with a smile: "Although Liang Shen will be transferred, it won't be transported for a while anyway." As for how much food I need, I'll have to wait until the project plan is formulated. ”

"If the project is huge, you can leave more for Master Wang." Liang Xi dreamed of dumping the pot.

Last year, more than 1,000 Jining Cao boats were burned, and Shen Fuxuan's responsibility was minimal. And the Liang Xi in front of him is among the Caoyun generals, ranking second in responsibility, and the first is Gu Shilong, the chief soldier of Caoyun and the Marquis of Zhenyuan.

This gentleman is very unlucky, last year the boat was burned, this year twice cut off the voyage, has been fined until next summer. During this period, he has been wearing crimes and making meritorious contributions, but the more and more he wears the guilt, it feels like borrowing a loan shark and not being able to pay it off in this life.

But Beijing continued to provide food, and Liang Xi could not sit back and wait for navigation. He had to organize the transportation of officers and soldiers to transport grain to Texas by land, which consumed people, grain, and time...... It's very troublesome, I wish Wang Yuan would take away some more grain, anyway, the court can also push it to Wang Yuan.

It's a pity that Wang Yuan didn't accept it.

In terms of the efficiency of land transshipment, Linqing kept hundreds of boats, and Liang Xi couldn't transport them for a month or two (too few people).

Standing on the deck, Wang Yuan instructed the students to take a small boat, place benchmarks in various rivers and river banks, and use trigonometric functions to measure the height of the nearby terrain. Even Wang Yuan didn't bother to calculate it himself, and threw it directly to the students to do the problem, and only when the data between the students were different, Wang Yuan would calculate and verify it himself.

"Let the river silt?" Wang Yuan asked.

Liang Xi said helplessly: "What can I do?" The governor of the river was in Huanglinggang to control the water, and he had to transfer grain by land, and the silt of the Weihe River could only be ignored for the time being. ”

Wang Yuan reminded: "If you don't clear the dredging in winter, it will be even more difficult to clean up when the water rises in spring." ”

Liang Xi said: "I am not afraid that the water will rise in spring, and it will definitely be navigable at that time, but I am afraid that the rain will be insufficient in the late spring, and the boat will run aground again because of sediment." ”

This is a very embarrassing thing, the governor of the river is far away in Henan, and he has no energy to come to the Qing Dynasty to do things. The Caoyun soldiers and civilians on the Linqing side also have the responsibility of cleaning up the river, but their greater responsibility is to quickly transport the grain by land!

The Wei River was silted there, and no one took care of it, blocking all the merchant ships from the north and south, and I don't know how much economic loss it would cause.

Among them, there were also merchant ships that transported cotton for Wang Yuan. Now it is the cotton picking season, Shandong cotton to Tianjin, the fastest is to take this waterway!

In both public and private, Wang Yuan had to hurry up and dredge the Wei River.

Wang Yuan said: "General Liang, I want to see the dredging boat, maybe it can be improved." ”

Linqingzhou is an important transshipment point for water transportation, and the river is shallow, so it is often silted, and there are always dredging ships for emergency.

On the dredging boat, there are various tools.

One is called the "Mixed River Dragon", which is a long wooden pole with four iron blades installed at the end, which sinks to the bottom of the water and is stirred by manpower to brush the sediment. However, the local silt can only be dispersed, allowing it to slide deeper into the nearby river.

One is called "iron dragon grasping", which is tied with a rope and thrown into the water, driving the boat with all its might, and dragging away the silt at the bottom of the river with the power of the boat moving forward. Again, it is just a drag, and it can only be treated locally, and large-scale silting does not work at all.

One is called "Junchuan rake", which is to make a nail rake or something like a giant wooden pole. The two large boats are anchored and fixed, and the giant wood and nail rake are located between the two boats, and the workers on the boat drag them back and forth with pulleys to stir up the silted sediment.

They are all local dredging equipment, and the silting of the Wei River this time is caused by the sediment brought by the Yellow River, and it must be manually salvaged and dredging during the dry season!

In the next few days, the students surveyed and mapped, and Wang Yuan worked on improving the dredging boat, which he wanted to build a "chain bucket sand mining boat".

Canvas is used as a track, and the track has holes to facilitate the wheel hub to drive. Every other section of the crawler, there is an iron digging bucket, and there is a lifting stem that stretches into the bottom of the river. There is no steam engine or anything, but the power table can be rotated by four workers, and the hub and track can be easily driven by the iron gear and the lever principle.

When encountering a place where dredging is not good, you can use the "mixed river dragon" to break up the silt, and then use Wang Yuan's equipment to dig the sand. The excavated sediment is sent to the boat through the crawler, and the workers can transport it away, which is 100 times more efficient than manual dredging.

Wang Yuan immediately summoned Linqingzhou craftsmen, carpenters, blacksmiths, and textile craftsmen through Zhizhou Ma Lun, and built them strictly according to the drawings.

All that's left is to wait, with first-class craftsmen making parts, and second-class students surveying and drawing.

If you want to ensure the navigation of Linqing River in all seasons, it is not as simple as digging a reservoir to store water and discharge floodwater, otherwise someone would have figured it out a long time ago, and the ancient ministers of river governance were not all fools.

"Second brother," Yuan Da hurriedly ran to report, "Mr. Shen is here!" ”

Wang Yuan was stunned and asked rhetorically, "Master Shen?" ”

Yuan Da smiled: "It's him." He is now the judge of Jining Prefecture, and you write to the deputy envoy of Shandong's military garrison, and the deputy envoy will send Mr. Shen to contact him. ”

Wang Yuan immediately went out to greet him, and shouted from afar: "Sir, I haven't seen you for three years, and I want to trouble the students!" ”

Shen Fuxuan is more stylish than when he was a master before, he was wearing a shabby official uniform, holding a peacock feather fan presented by Wang Jiang's family, holding Wang Yuan's hand and saying: "Brother Yuan has grown taller again, you and I don't want to meet again in Shandong!" ”

"Sir, please come in and talk!" Wang Yuan carefully supported him.

Shen Fuxuan sighed: "Brother Yuan is still filial, I am only a shallow learner, I can only enlighten you, how can I be so respectful." ”

The love between master and apprentice touches the heavens and the earth.

The officials in Linqingzhou, as well as the Jining officials brought by Shen Fuxuan, all looked at it with emotion, and maybe someone would go back to educate the younger generation.

There was no one in the ashram.

Wang Yuan smiled and said, "Sir, what does Li Bingxian mean?" Is he willing to cooperate? ”

Shen Fuxuan sat crookedly on the chair: "Cooperate, it's strange if you don't match." Not to mention 50,000 people, even if you want 100,000 people, you can get it together. There are too many things under the jurisdiction of Bingbei Dao, including temporary relief for the displaced people, and now there are thirty or forty thousand disaster victims gathered outside Jining City, and even the disaster victims of Linqing are running over there. Li Bingxian asked you to hurry up and formulate a project plan, and he will be able to send tens of thousands of disaster victims immediately! ”

Yes, the ancient people were also very smart.

If it weren't for the lack of enough power, money and food, Li Chongsi, the deputy envoy of Shandong's military garrison, estimated that he would have to take the disaster victims to build water conservancy. It's really terrible for tens of thousands of disaster victims to gather together, if you don't find something to do for them, it's easy to make a mess, and maybe someone will take advantage of the chaos to rebel!