A flood in the fifteenth year of Xuanping scared Li Xuan and the high-ranking officials of the empire half to death.

This kind of frightening is not only because of the flood itself, but because although this rainstorm is heavy, according to the report of the Royal Institute of Technology and the experience of local old farmers, it is normal for such a rainstorm to occur once in twenty or thirty years, not once every ten years.

This means that the current flood control system in the Yellow River and Huai River basins can at best support a once-in-a-decade flood, and exceeding this limit will cause widespread flooding.

And even if it is a once-in-a-decade occurrence, or even an ordinary rainfall that occurs every year, it will cause small to medium-sized floods.

And this state of affairs is unbearable for the Empire!

The construction of water conservancy facilities is urgent, especially the two hard-hit areas of the Yellow River and the Huai River, which are combined, and it is even more necessary to rectify them immediately.

After the floods of this summer, the empire has already begun to build water conservancy facilities in the above-mentioned areas, but more often combined with disaster relief, through the model of work for relief, in general, its focus is not on building water conservancy facilities, but on disaster relief.

But since this winter, Li Xuan has instructed the relevant yamen, especially the Ministry of Industry, which is responsible for large-scale infrastructure projects, to make a series of relevant plans to build an overall flood control project for the Yellow River and Huai River basins.

In particular, the major weak areas are taking advantage of the drop in water levels in autumn and winter, and they are stepping up construction to prepare for floods in the spring and summer of the next year.

For this reason, the empire has prepared about 3 million yuan of special funds in advance in the autumn and winter of this year for the management of the Yellow River and the Huai River.

And this part of the funds is actually not included in the fiscal expenditure budget of Xuanping for the fifteenth year, because the financial expenditure budget of Xuanping for the fifteenth year has already been spent, and the financial blow of a flood to the empire is quite serious.

In order to fight the flood and provide disaster relief, the empire has spent about 15 million yuan, of which 5 million yuan is the emergency fund of the central treasury of the empire, about 3 million yuan is squeezed out of various departments, about 5 million is squeezed out of local finances, and the other 2 million is donations from all walks of life.

Such a huge cost can also prove how harmful the flood is!

In order to avoid another flood in the coming year, even if the treasury was already empty enough to starve the rats, Li Xuan still forcibly pulled out 3 million yuan for the treatment of the Yellow River and the Huai River.

This money was borrowed from the Imperial Bank and used first, and then repaid from the water budget in the sixteenth year of Xuanping.

Therefore, although the water conservancy budget for Xuanping for 16 years was determined in December, in fact, the relevant projects were already carried out in September.

With the arrival of the Spring Festival, the empire has officially entered the sixteenth year of Xuanping.

Just after the Spring Festival, the cabinet members reported to Li Xuan on the control of the Yellow River-Huai River.

"Based on past experience, we have developed a series of treatment plans for the Yellow River and Huai River basins, and the premise is to focus on building dikes and expanding the capacity of reservoirs to ensure that large-scale flooding is not generated."

"The construction of key dams, including the embankment in Kaifeng area, Hongze Lake embankment, etc., for the embankment in the above key areas, we are ready to adopt a new construction model, and use a large amount of cement in the project. In particular, the Hongze Lake embankment will use stone, cement and other materials on a large scale to build a super dam that will never burst! ”

"By building the Hongze Lake embankment and relocating the towns and villages in the area around the lake, as well as the entire Hongze Lake, the area of the lake will be more than tripled to the existing level, and the existing lakes will be connected, and the water storage capacity will be increased by more than five times!"

"The expansion project of Hongze Lake can not only resist flooding, but also effectively improve the river transportation capacity of the area, and then increase the transportation capacity of the entire canal!"

The report of cabinet officials is more focused on the Hongze Lake expansion project, and this project is also a key project formulated by the imperial Tang Dynasty after many discussions.

According to the relevant research report of the Royal Institute of Technology, it is very difficult to thoroughly control the Yellow River and achieve the effect once and for all, because this is not something that can be done by building river embankments, and the root cause of the difficulty in the management of the Yellow River is not the construction of river embankments and the like, but the soil erosion in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River.

Soil erosion in the upper reaches of the Yellow River has led to a large amount of sediment in the Yellow River, which accumulates on the riverbed and continuously raises the riverbed, forcing the embankment to be continuously raised.

Therefore, the root cause of the Yellow River is to solve the problem of soil erosion in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River, and to solve this problem, in fact, it is impossible to do it at present, on the one hand, the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River, part of which is not in the control area of the Tang Dynasty.

Even if it is under the control of the Tang Dynasty, the empire has enough strength to plant trees and avoid problems such as overexploitation, and it will take at least a few decades to achieve initial results.

It's too difficult to solve the problem once and for all, and it can't be done for a while.

So the Royal Institute of Technology put forward the second plan, claiming that this plan would ensure that the Yellow River would be kept under control for the next 100 years.

The second plan is to take the initiative to divert the Yellow River, blast the embankment in a certain section, artificially burst the embankment, and then let the Yellow River flow to a pre-set channel, so that the Yellow River can flow from the existing southward to the sea to Shandong.

This is to change the common outlet of the Yellow River and the Huai River, resulting in the situation that northern Anhui and Jiangbei are facing floods every year when the flood season comes.

In addition, there is another advantage of this, which is to solve the water problem of the north.

Since the Yellow River seized the Huai into the sea, the lack of water in Hebei, Shandong and other places has led to frequent droughts, while the northern Anhui and Jiangbei are facing flood crises every year because of the influx of water from the Yellow River.

If the Yellow River can be artificially diverted, then many problems can be solved at the same time.

In fact, this kind of voluntary diversion plan is, to put it bluntly, since the existing riverbed of the Yellow River is high, then give it a new course, although it is still a symptom rather than a cure, but through advance planning, it can ensure safety for the next few decades.

In this process, it is expected that the water and soil problems in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River will be dealt with in an early 50 years.

Fifty years later, Li Xuan estimated that the scientific and technological level of the empire would be greatly improved, and then targeted governance would be carried out, such as building a super hydropower station.

Simply and rudely dividing the Yellow River into two or three or four, and adjusting the water level of the Yellow River through super dams, can not only solve the flood problem, but also solve the problem of the Yellow River's low water level affecting navigation in autumn and winter, and by the way, it can also generate electricity.

More importantly, it can be used as a water conservancy project for irrigation.

However, there is also a huge problem with this proposal, that is, to plan the course of the Yellow River, relocate it in advance, and build the river embankment at the same time, and it cannot be said that there is no preparation, and then the Yellow River is directly diverted, which is not called governance, but flooding......

It's just that this kind of mega project, which affects several provinces and millions of people, is actually difficult to solve for a while.

This plan is approved by many people, and even Li Xuan is very inclined to this plan, but the implementation of this plan is too difficult, just planning the river and relocating the people, this is a huge and time-consuming project, unless Li Xuan does not care about the life and death of the people, and directly redirects the Yellow River.

Therefore, although this plan has also been determined by the high-level, it is currently in the early planning and preparation stage, and there is no possibility of implementing the plan for at least ten years.

To this end, the Royal Institute of Technology put forward a third plan, which can also be regarded as a cure for the root cause, and it is also a super project that is simple to eliminate violence.

That is the expansion plan of Hongze Lake!

The core of the plan is very simple, that is, to directly use Hongze Lake as a reservoir!

In fact, this plan is also an extension of the current implementation of the Yellow River and Huai River control plan, and the Hongze Lake has been used as a reservoir in the pre-Ming Dynasty to reduce the harm of floods.

It's just that the technical level of the pre-Ming Dynasty is limited and the construction capacity is too poor, so the water storage capacity of Hongze Lake is limited, and the embankment of Hongze Lake is still an earthen embankment, and the embankment will burst if there is nothing to do at both ends in three days.

However, the current Tang Empire, its technical level and more importantly, its construction capacity, is far more than the Ming Dynasty, and even any traditional feudal dynasty, the Tang Empire has enough strength to build a super Hongze Lake embankment, the Hongze Lake water is bound.

At the same time, its ability to organize the government far beyond that of traditional dynasties also allowed the Tang Empire to concentrate and relocate the people in the surrounding areas to expand the area of Hongze Lake, so as to increase the existing water storage capacity of Hongze Lake to more than five times.

After detailed consideration, Li Xuan officially approved the implementation of these three plans at the same time, but the priority is first, and the Hongze Lake expansion plan is the best plan to be implemented immediately, and a large amount of funds and personnel are allocated to immediately enter the construction stage.

The second plan, that is, the Yellow River diversion plan, is to enter the preparatory stage, conduct research and preparation work, and carry out drawing operations.

As for the first plan, which is to solve the sediment problem of the Yellow River, it is a research stage to work out a detailed feasible plan.

The focus of these plans is naturally the expansion plan of Hongze Lake, which is directly related to the safety of the Huai River in the next 20 years or even longer, even if the Yellow River is diverted in the future, but Hongze Lake can still play a huge role in flood control, irrigation, navigation, etc., because in addition to the Yellow River, there is also the Huai River.

Sixteen years after entering Xuanping, taking advantage of the fact that there are still a few months before the summer flood season, the Hongze Lake project has also entered a tense period!