The mouth of Wuliuxi is more than 100 zhang wide, and the west bank is quite deep and steep, which can be used as a natural river port wharf, but the river channel of Wuliuxi is not conducive to boating.

Wuliuxi originates from the southern foot of Longya Mountain, flows through the platform in the southeast direction of Longya Mountain, and finally flows into the Yuan River, which is the most important river in Yushu Bay.

Wuliuxi river bends and turns, about 40 miles long, the place where the river passes through the drop is larger, not to mention autumn and winter, spring and summer, the flow of rapids is dangerous, and it is not conducive to boating.

More importantly, when Wuliuxi came out of Longya Mountain, it carried a large amount of sediment to block the river, and the platform through which it flowed was on average twenty or thirty meters higher than the alluvial plain of Yushuwan on the west side.

In spring and summer, the water of Wuliuxi River swells sharply, overflowing from the blocked river, and the entire Yushu Bay will be flooded and flooded.

In addition to the Xi clan's strict prohibition of Hakka refugees to gather at the southern foot of Longya Mountain in the early years, and the sharp bend of Yuanshui here, the water potential is extremely large, the particularity of Wuliuxi is really the most important obstacle and bottleneck that restricts the predecessors from reclaiming Yushu Bay.

Han Qian had personally visited Elm Bay twice before.

In the past year, Han Qian even ordered Ji Xiyao to find out the hydrogeography of the southern foot of Longya Mountain, the banks of Wuliuxi, and Yushu Bay, and before coming to Xuzhou this time, he had already drawn up a plan to tame Wuliuxi, and when Wuliuxi left Longya Mountain, he would dig a new canal to channel the water of Wuliuxi into the sand river that flows through the hinterland of Yushuwan in the west.

However, in the spring and summer rainy seasons, in order to avoid flooding along the Shahe River, it is necessary to build a diversion weir between the newly dug canal and the original Wuliuxi and build an overflow weir on the old channel of Wuliuxi to regulate the upstream water of Wuliuxi at different times.

After the completion of the entire water conservancy project, in the autumn and winter dry season, the water from the upper reaches of Wuliuxi will be blocked by the overflow weir and forced to go around the diversion weir and flow into the Shahe River from the diversion canal, so as to ensure that the fields reclaimed in Yushuwan in the dry season also have sufficient irrigation water; In the flood season, a large amount of flood water rushes out of Longya Mountain, the water level rises, and a large amount of river water can pass through the overflow weir and enter the old channel of Wuliuxi, and divert into Yuanshui.

The construction of the water distribution weir and the overflow weir should be ingenious, not only to ensure that the upstream water can irrigate the grain fields in the bay mouth during the dry season, but also to ensure that the vast majority of the upstream water can be sent to the old river channel of Wuliuxi during the flood season, so that the grain fields in the bay mouth will not be affected.

The Siming Mountain Weir built by Chen Jitang's father in Mingzhou may not be under the Wuliuxi Weir in terms of complexity, but it is by no means a cat or a dog, so he dared to build such a water conservancy project in Xuzhou to tame the unruly Wuliuxi.

At least Xuzhou has never encountered such a water control official for thousands of years.

Wuliu Creek is not conducive to navigation, and after Han Qian and they got off the boat at the mouth of the creek, they led five or six thousand people to walk to the mouth of the Wuliu River out of Longya Mountain.

A small-scale earthen village has been built on the west side of the estuary, and there are a few slightly decent wooden buildings in the village, but there are large messy shacks outside the village, Han Qian led the crowd over, and many unkempt people stood on the bank of Wuliu Creek and looked curiously, their eyes were also full of worry and fear.

After all, Han Qian's newly organized state battalion of five hundred soldiers behind him was murderous, not an ornament.

From the north of the village, along the not too steep bank of Wuliuxi, there is a trail to the depths of Longya Mountain, Han Qian knows that walking more than 20 miles into the mountain along this trail is the old Xi village where the ancestors of the Xi clan live.

After Feng Changyu destroyed the Xi clan, he was afraid of the pressure of Yang, Xi, and Xiang clans, and finally did not dare to directly annex the old Xi village, but destroyed and abandoned the village, and sold the Xi clan into slavery; For nearly a decade, Longya Mountain has been a terra nullius, not to mention Elm Bay at the southern foot of Longya Mountain.

At present, there are only four or five hundred native Fan people, and more than ten small villages have been built at the southern foot of Longya Mountain to live, which cannot be regarded as any force, but the residents living in this large shack at the mouth of Wuliuxi River are obviously not native Fan people.

Ji Xiyao found coal and iron ore in Longya Mountain, and Han Qian ordered Ji Xiyao to occupy the old Xi Village in the name of recruiting displaced people to mine coal and iron ore, and also built a village at the mouth of Wuliuxi out of Longya Mountain.

Seeing Han Qian leading a large group of people and horses to come over, Ji Xiyao asked people to open the gate of the village and happily greeted him: "The day before yesterday, someone from Qianyang reported that the young master had arrived in Xuzhou, and Xiyao couldn't believe it!" In the past two days, several groups of people have gone to Wuliuxi to snoop, Xiyao is worried that there will be changes, and he is timid, so he will gather all the people and horses into the stockade to beware of changes, Xiyao failed to meet him at the mouth of the stream, and asked the young master to give sin! ”

At present, the coal and iron ore mining and smelting in the mountains are all carried out by hired displaced people, who live in hastily built shacks on the outskirts of the camp, and have no loyalty to the Han family.

Ji Xiyao was worried that the situation was turbulent, and these displaced people would take advantage of the chaos to loot the materials hoarded in the village, so they could only temporarily close the stockade to prevent changes, and he didn't know that Han Qian would come over so quickly with a large team of people when he arrived in Xuzhou.

Han Qian introduced Chen Jitang, Zhao Qi and others to Ji Xiyao.

"The situation in Qianyang is undecided, why did the young master come to Longya Mountain in such a hurry?"

Ji Xiyao is full of expectations that the Han family can stand on its own feet in Xuzhou, in his opinion, it is most important for the Han family to stabilize the situation in Qianyang at this time, as long as they can really separate Xuzhou and stand on their own in the future, it will not be too late to develop Longya Mountain and Yushu Bay.

Han Qian said with a smile: "Before the spring water rises next year, we only have three months of construction time available to repair the water distribution weir, how dare I delay in Qianyang City?" ”

In order to build the Wuliuxi diversion weir, excavate the canal, build houses for so many people to live in, expand the mining scale of coal yards and iron ore mines, and sort out the new process of iron smelting and steelmaking, Han Qian not only brought Lin Haizheng, Chen Jitang, Du Junyi, Du Junming and others to Longya Mountain, but also Zheng Tong and more than 100 craftsmen who were abducted this time.

Zheng Tong completely recognized the "wolf ambition" of the Han family's father and son at this time, but others were coerced to Xuzhou, like a lost dog, but they were helpless.

He didn't dare to go against Han Qian's will now, but he was afraid that he would use Han Qian's heart and soul and affect his family who stayed in Jinling.

Han Qian pointed and asked him to come forward to meet Ji Xiyao, Zheng Tong's old face like bark, his face was full of bitterness, and he cowered.

"Who are you showing such a bitter face, old fellow? Is it possible that I am afraid that I will cut off your head," Han Qian reprimanded with a straight face, "I will now hand over the coal yard of Longya Mountain to you to manage, as long as I can transport 100,000 catties of coal cakes down the mountain every day, I will not embarrass you." After a year, if you don't want to stay in Xuzhou, I will send someone to escort you back to Jinling to reunite with your family! ”

Previously, Han Qian transferred a group of craftsmen to Xuzhou, but the number was limited after all, Ji Xiyao had previously opened up a coal yard in Longya Mountain, and also built a hydraulic coal crushing mill, producing 20,000 catties of coal per day, barely able to ensure the demand for lime, green bricks and pig iron smelting downstream.

At present, Han Qian led 6,000 people to enter the mouth of the Wuliuxi River, in addition to repairing the water weir, but also to build a number of large-scale enclosures with both defense and residential functions, but also need to forge a large number of tools, only 20,000 catties of briquettes per day, which is far from enough.

Opening a base, fuel and food are always the first time to break through and solve the problem.

Although Zheng Tong is conservative and cautious by nature, he can be called a master craftsman in the traditional craftsman industry, and Han Qian does not talk to him, and directly assigns him the task.

In Zheng Tong's view, he himself was forced by Han Qian to do things, and it was easier to accept it in his heart.

Sure enough, after Han Qian reprimanded, Zheng Tong's face softened slightly, and he selected seven craftsmen who were familiar with the operation of the coal yard, and then rushed directly to the coal yard in the depths of Longya Mountain to take over the matter with the people assigned by Ji Xiyao.

In addition to sending Lin Zongjing to lead a team of armor soldiers to station in the old Xi Village in the depths of Longya Mountain, in case enemy soldiers might raid from Chenyang County in the north of Longya Mountain, Han Qian led the other men and horses to camp at the mouth of the river.

There were 3,000 men under the age of 16 and 50 and strong women under the age of 20 and 40.

At this moment, Han Qian didn't care about their crying father and mother, and forcibly organized them into sixty labor teams, and separated more than 60 unstable Zuo Si scouts and the remaining 250 Zuo Si children whose families were in Jinling to lead these sixty labor teams, and under the guidance of the craftsmen, they took on the heavy tasks of quarrying and logging, digging canals, repairing water dividing weirs, and building enclosures.

The Wuliuxi diversion weir was considered a high-tech work in the world, but the main work was gravity work.

The excavation of canals, the repair of diversion weirs, and overflow weirs requires the excavation and transportation of millions of square meters of earth and stone before the entire project can be finally completed.

Based on the investment of 2,000 strong laborers, the main canal must be dug in 90 days, and on average, one person has to dig and transport six or seven square meters of earth and rock a day; In particular, the river canal is digging deeper and deeper, climbing up and down and running back and forth hundreds of times a day, and its hard work will be unimaginable for ordinary people.

In the past, there were still a few slaves and maids in the Feng family's mansion who were really engaged in heavy physical work, and more people were mainly stewards and shopkeepers of warehouses, pawn shops or granges. Even if they directly serve the maids and slaves of the Feng family in the Feng Mansion, they are doing the work of serving people, and it is by no means a heavy physical work.

The whole project was rolled out, and in three or four days, hundreds of people were so tired that they vomited blood.

Although in the past six months, under the instruction of Han Qian, Ji Xiyao has hired displaced people to work and built a coal yard, an iron ore yard, a charcoal kiln, a lime kiln, a brick kiln and an iron-making yard in Longya Mountain, but due to the fact that there are too few familiar craftsmen in Xuzhou, as well as Ji Xiyao's own lack of prestige, and the limited resources that can be called, many things are still very rough.

As soon as Han Qian arrived at Longya Mountain, he still took Du Junyi, Du Junming and others, as well as a group of craftsmen who were abducted from Jinling, into the mountain to sort out these tasks, and handed over the construction of the diversion weir and the excavation of the canal to Lin Haizheng and Chen Jitang.

Han Qian first roughly sorted out the coal yard, iron ore yard, lime kiln, brick window, iron-making yard and other things built in the mountain, and asked Du Junyi to stay in the mountain to assist Zheng Tong to preside over his affairs, and then he took people out of the mountain to the mouth of the river, it was already ten days later.

At this time, three of the slaves and maids of the Feng family had died of exhaustion.

Even if Tian Cheng led 400 elite armor soldiers to be stationed at the mouth of the river, and no one in the Feng family dared to openly resist, but the morale was so low that it would be difficult for the project to continue quickly.