Tangyi abolished the old system of forced labor, and spread the money of Ding Fu and Reduced Labor into the field tax, which was destined to requisition an additional 60,000 or 70,000 young and strong people, and the cost was not much lower than that of the forbidden army or the guards and pro-army to recruit men and horses of the same size.

In addition to a large number of tools for digging rivers and repairing embankments, the monthly rations of 60,000 young and strong men are as high as 60,000 stone of brown rice.

At that time, there was very little food and fat in the world, and digging rivers and repairing embankments was heavy physical work, and the three catties of rations for soldiers and civilians on the embankment could only be regarded as a basic guarantee, in addition to providing a large number of pickles; Of course, extravagant meat is impossible to provide; In order to prevent sepsis, some companies will do everything possible to provide a supply of fresh vegetables, but the quantity is still very limited.

Fortunately, in addition to the slack, he can eat enough to work on the embankment, and he still has a salary of ten or twenty yuan a day, but he has no complaints about the newly attached people in the four prefectures of Guangshou Haohuo.

What really has doubts is that some generals within the government are still in charge, this is mainly to gather sixty or seventy thousand heavy men and horses at a time, even if the assembly period is only half a year, the cost is expected to exceed one million, and the ultimate goal is only to keep Shouchun City from flooding, is it necessary.

After learning of Han Qian's decision, Han Daochang also deliberately and secretly rushed to Shouchun to meet Han Qian to discuss the possible development of the follow-up situation.

Han Qian will still explain the interior as clearly as possible, so that the upper and lower levels can unify their thinking and improve the execution of all aspects.

The Yu River seized the Huai River into the sea, and he couldn't take care of the dilemma faced by the land of Hehuai, which was something that Zhu Yu had to consider, but it was in Huaixi, not only that the important town of Shouchun City might be flooded, but what Han Qian cared about, or what made Han Qian dare not be careless, was the safety of the irrigation area inside and outside the outer city of Shouchun and about five or six hundred thousand mu in the east of Huoqiu.

If this irrigated area is flooded, it will directly turn the grain supply in Huaixi from a relaxed situation that was not easily achieved to a shortage of food.

The cultivated land near Shouchun City seems to account for only 5 or 6 percent of the total cultivated area of Huaixi, but it is mainly a high-yield paddy field.

At present, other areas in Huaixi are still mostly dry land, especially the shallow hills and low ridges in the central and southern parts of Huozhou, Shouzhou and Gwangju, and the average yield per mu is low.

There are also a large number of fields in Donghu, Liyang, Wushou and other places for planting cotton, medicinal materials and other cash crops.

As a result of these factors, the grain output in Shouchun and the eastern part of Huoqiu directly accounted for about 10 percent of the entire grain and grass output in Huaixi.

Once this area is reduced to a sea of water, there will be no harvest in summer and autumn, and it will also be necessary for the government to come up with a large amount of extra grain to provide relief to 780,000 people in Shouchun and Huoqiu.

According to internal and external calculations, the most serious situation will directly reduce the total grain supply in Huaixi by about 15 percent.

With the scale of Huaixi's grain production, even if it directly shrinks by 15 percent this year, it will not cause a serious problem of grain shortage, but what about continuing to fulfill the promise of grain aid to the Hehuai Liang Army?

And once the Mengwu poison plan is sold, then on both sides of the Jialu River and the Shaying River, it is very likely that a yellow flood area with a depth of one to two hundred miles and an extension of eight or nine hundred miles will be formed.

Only by protecting the Shouchun irrigation area can we raise another one to two million stone grains on the basis of satisfying the needs of the Hehuai and Liang armies, and provide necessary relief to the hungry people in Hehuai who will be produced on a large scale after the beginning of summer.

Otherwise, how much money and materials would it cost to restart the plan to purchase grain on a large scale in Jiangdong and other places when the government was burning its brows?

At present, Tangyi only needs 800,000 yuan of grain to purchase 1.2 million stone grains in Huaixi, but if it is purchased in large quantities from Jiangdong and other places, it will need to add millions of yuan.

What's more important is that once the Yuhe River seizes the Huai into the sea becomes a fact, it will not be something that will stop in a year or two.

At this time, if the Huai Liang army of the river cannot take Xingyang City for a day, and the old course of the Yu River cannot be restored for a day, then the negative impact of this incident on the Jialu River, the Shaying River, the middle and lower reaches of the Huai River and the coastal areas of Hongzepu will not be eliminated for a day......

With the superposition of several unfavorable factors, it was difficult for Han Qian to predict in what direction the follow-up situation of the Tangyi army would turn around.

In any case, Han Qian had to do everything possible to defend the Shouchun irrigation area, and at the same time, after Han Daochang returned to Jinling, the Chishan Society would directly launch grain procurement plans in various places to deal with the possible food shortage in Huaixi.

Of course, Han Qian's large-scale gathering and mobilization of people and horses in Shouchun made Jinling, Huaidong, and Xiangbei, who did not know the truth, uncomfortable and disturbed.

It is also true that in the years ago, Tangyi including the navy, infantry battalion and cavalry, has always maintained a standing army of about 50,000 soldiers, a few days after the New Year, Han Qian suddenly set off from Liyang, rushed to Shouchun for unprecedented military mobilization and assembly, only the new Fourth Town Army total size of more than 70,000 people.

In other words, the 50,000 active standing soldiers and horses in Tangyi suddenly increased to as many as 120,000.

In other words, who can sleep peacefully on the side of Tangyi?

Jinling, Chuzhou, and Xiangcheng sent envoys to Shouchun to see Han Qian every other day and ask what was going on.

Han Qian also had no intention of concealing it, telling the truth about the intention of the Weizhou rebels and the Mughal people to force the Yu River to be diverted, and also reminded Huaidong to strengthen the repair of dams, ditches and other water conservancy facilities on the east bank of Hongze East and the south bank of the Huai River.

After the peace of Chu and Liang, Jinling, Xiangbei, and Huaidong were able to send Shang Jia into the area controlled by the Hehuai Liang army such as Xu Ru, Song and Chen, and they also heard about Liang Shixiong's organization of military and civilian excavation of the embankment in the east of Xingyang City, but whether it was Huaidong, Xiangbei or Huaidong, they did not feel that the situation was as serious as Han Qian imagined.

In addition to the large camps of the Mengwu people on the north and south banks of the Zhaotang Embankment, which had not yet further assembled the army and civilians, the reaction of the Liang army in Xuzhou and northern Ruzhou was much calmer than Han Qian said, and there was no sense of urgency that a catastrophe was coming, not to mention organizing troops and horses to attack Xingyang City with all their might before the rainy season came.

Other families didn't believe it, and Han Qian didn't have the obligation to ask them to believe it, but he gathered so many people in Shouchun, and after entering February, all of them were used for the reinforcement of the embankment on the south bank, the construction of the Longchi Mountain Weir Lake, and the dredging of the flood belt.

In addition to more than 60,000 young and strong laborers, Han Qian also successively requisitioned nearly 20,000 mules and horses, thousands of large and small vehicles and ships from various places to transport sand, gravel, soil and wood.

The reinforcement and heightening of the embankment is one thing, but the world is limited by the material, the embankment is mainly made of soil, no matter how it is strengthened and strengthened, the overall strength is extremely limited and cannot be withstanded

Excessively high detention level, flood diversion and flood discharge are the key to the longevity irrigation area.

Ji Xiyao led the water workers of the Engineering and Construction Division to draw a flood belt from southwest to southeast in Shouchun City, which was more than 50 miles long from east to west and a few miles wide from north to south.

In order to ensure that the connection between Shouchun City and the mainland is not severed, the section of the post road located in the flood belt needs to be widened and heightened, but when the post road passes through the flood belt, sufficient flood culverts should be reserved.

In order to save time, Han Qian directly ordered that the prefabricated iron girder bridge components for another place would be directly transported to Shouchun for use, and a total of 120 meters of continuous arch iron girder bridge would be erected in the post road crossing flood belt; The piers are also excavated, and the foundation is mixed with reinforced stones, mud, river sand.

In early February, the Weizhou rebels dug a levee in the east of Xingyang.

However, the flow of the Yu River during the ice period was very small, and the riverbed of the Xingyang section of the Yu River had not been completely overhung from the flat ground, and the terrain in the east of Xingyang City was rugged.

The upper reaches of the Yu River began to thaw in late February, and the flow of the upper reaches of the Yu River increased, and a large amount of broken ice leaked from the gap to the south, invading the low-lying area west and south of Xingyang City and located on the west bank of the Jialu River, making it a vast ocean, and completely blocking the passage of the Hehuai Liang army to attack Xingyang from the eastern foot of Songshan Mountain.

However, the Jialu River (chasm), the Qin and Han dynasties as the core of the communication of the river and Huai, the water conservancy facilities are relatively perfect, not only between the Yu River and the sluice, the lock, but also the two banks are also built dikes.

The large amount of water that carried a large amount of broken ice and discharged from the south of the breach was blocked by the embankment on the west bank of the Jialu River, and mainly flowed and accumulated in Xingze and other places between Xingyang City and the Jialu River embankment, until the end of March, the territory of Xingzhou became a vast ocean, but it did not have a serious impact on the areas on both sides of the middle and lower reaches of the Shaying River.

At this time, the Weizhou rebels and the Mughurs no longer concealed their sinister intentions, and tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians were driven to both sides of the Zhaotang embankment east of the breach, and hundreds of thousands of loads of sand, gravel and soil were transported into the river every day to build a barrage.

Unlike more than 400 years ago, the construction of the Fushan weir in the middle reaches of the Huai River by the Southern Liang Kingdom was an adventurous action that was doomed to failure, the siltation of the Yu River near the Zhaotang Embankment was extremely serious, and at the same time, most of the water from the upper reaches of the Yu River was discharged from the breach on the west side to the south, so that the water of the Yu River near the Zhaotang Embankment was actually less than 200 meters wide in mid to late March, and the deepest water level was only a little more than one meter.

It was also about the end of March, the Mengwu people near the Zhaotang embankment, they quickly succeeded in intercepting the Yu River, and then only widened and heightened the barrage dam, and even tried to build a gallop road directly across the Yu River and leading to the south bank, so that the soldiers and horses of the Mengwu people in Huai, Wei and other prefectures could directly enter Wuzhi and other places on the south bank, or attack the western flank of Bianjing.

If Tangyi had delayed its response to all this at this point, it would have missed nearly three months of extremely precious time to respond, and there would have been no better choice than to withdraw tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians from the areas east of Shouchun and Huoqiu, and abandon Shouchun City and the nearby irrigation area of as many as 5 or 600,000 mu.

In April, the Weihe Plain in the upper reaches of the Yu River and the northwest areas further north and west, as well as the mountains of Funiu Mountain and Songshan Mountain in the west wing, and the Baitong Mountain and Huaiyang Mountain on the north bank of the upper reaches of the Huai River have entered the rainy season one after another.

In mid-to-late April, the water level of the Huai River west of Shouchun City was higher than the newly built spillstone weir on the south bank of the embankment.

The difficulty of building a large sluice is still too great, there is only three months of construction time before and after, Han Qian did not cut the embankment to build a large sluice between the Huai River and the discharge zone, but dug a notch on the embankment, poured a deep pile foundation with concrete, and then paved a stone to build a spillway stone weir to introduce the Huai River water that is up to the warning water level into the drainage channel on the south bank of the embankment, so that the turbid flood water will bypass Shouchun City from the south and flow to Wabudang, which will always keep the water level in the west flood detention area of Shouchun City below the safe water level.

At this time, north of Wabudang, the Beiqishui River channel connecting the lower reaches of the Huai River is still being widened urgently; The flood storage capacity of Wabudang is also limited, and it is still necessary to discharge the flood water to the lower reaches of the Huai River in time.

The water situation in Shouzhou is not serious for the time being.

The summer grain harvest in the Shouchun irrigation area was carried out as scheduled in late April, with soybeans and wheat as the mainstay, and almost more than 500,000 stone of harvest was achieved, followed by the sowing of autumn grain, which was mainly rice, and it seems that it will not be seriously affected at present.

However, by the end of April, the Xu, Ru, Ying, and Chen prefectures along the Jialu and Shaying rivers were plunged into a sea of water, and countless people were forced to leave their homes.

The Jialu River and the Shaying River reach the north bank of the Yu River to the east of Xingyang, zigzag in the southeast direction and go to the west of Shouchun forty miles away into the Huai, and the main stream is nearly 900 miles long.

Even if Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang saw through the treacherous scheme of Liang Shixiong and the Mengwu people at the beginning of the year, not to mention the Liang army of Hehuai at this time, even when the Liang State was at its peak, it was impossible to strengthen the embankments on both sides of the Jialu River and Shaying River in such a short period of time in such a short period of time to the standard that could withstand floods three or four times higher than in previous years.

Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang did not think of attacking Xingyang City before the rainy season came, and fought for control of the Yuhe embankment in Xingyang, Wuzhi and other places.

Not to mention that the battle was too hasty, the offensive position could be flooded at any time, and I really couldn't see any chance of victory, so I could only fall into the calculations and traps that Liang Shixiong and the Muguls had arranged long ago.

Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang delayed until late April.

At this time, the floods on both sides of the Shaying River were raging, and the western areas of Ruzhou and Caizhou and Xuzhou, Yingzhou, and Chenzhou to the west of the Shaying River had been cut off by the monstrous floods from the Song and Bianjing in the east, and the floodplain still had areas that continued to expand to both wings, and it would last at least until August, and the floods that flooded and affected everything could be reduced.

At this time, the Hehuai Liang army was also cut into two parts, east and west.

At this time, Emperor Liang led the elite light soldiers on the western flank, abandoned the large weapons and baggage in the rear, and directly passed through the treacherous pass between Shaomu Mountain and Funiu Mountain on the northwest side of Ruzhou, and entered Songxian, Yichuan and other places in the upper reaches of the Luohe River.

The Songshan Mountains such as Shaomu Mountain and Taimuro Mountain are the remnants of Funiu Mountain in terms of topography.

Even though there are some canyons and slopes in the northwest of Ruzhou that can be crossed into the Heluo area, the terrain is extremely steep, and the mountain roads are slippery in the rainy season, and there are mudslides from time to time.

The Weizhou rebels in Songxian, Yichuan and other places on the south bank of Heluo could not be unprepared, they had already been fortified according to danger and the defense was extremely strict, and the Liang army wanted to launch an attack from this area, but it could only be filled with the lives of the generals, and the large weapons could not be sent at all.

And it must be from this area, almost all or nothing

To launch an attack on the Weizhou rebels who occupied the Heluo region, it was necessary to wait until this moment.

On the one hand, it takes time to build and widen the mountain road in the eastern part of Song County.

What's more important is that Zhu Yu has to wait until the Liang army from the middle and senior generals to the low-level soldiers fully realize that the current battle is a life-or-death battle for them, so that he can have a better chance of success.

There is another factor, that is, the Mengwu people built the barrage dam at Zhaotang Embankment, and they directly built the barrage dam into a gallop road connecting Huaizhou City and Wuzhi City on the north and south banks of the Yuhe River, and the main force of the Mengwu soldiers and horses was mainly deployed on the east side, intending to launch an offensive on the western flank of Bianjing.

With the further flooding, the east and south of Xingyang City, and then to the north of Xuzhou, all became a vast ocean, which not only limited the cavalry or infantry of the Mughurs to quickly reinforce the Heluo area defended by the Weizhou rebels, but also cut off the cavalry units of the Mughurs, from the south to the abdomen of Xuzhou, Ruzhou and even Caizhou, and attacked the western flank of the cavalry.

Even Xu Mingzhen's Shouzhou Army was mainly isolated in Qiaozhou, Bozhou and other places on the east bank of the Shaying River at this time.

Only by delaying it until this moment can Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang not worry about the possibility that Xu Mingzhen may be unstable, and can he rest assured that the 50,000 soldiers and horses gathered on the west bank of the Shaying River will do their best and devote all their resources from the dangerous valley road on the south side of Shaomu Mountain into the Heluo area, which has now become an isolated island.

However, Jinling, Xiangbei and Huaidong did not know the movements of the Hehuai Liang army.

After entering May, the land of Jianghuai has also entered the plum rainy period one after another, with continuous rainfall, serious waterlogging in Chuyang and other places, and rivers, ponds, streams and canals are overflowing.

As a result, the flood water from the upper reaches of the Huai River has become slower, and the water level in Hongzepu is getting higher and higher day by day.

The west bank of Hongzepu is a little higher, but Longyou Lake and Hongzepu in Zhongli County have been connected.

Shiliang County, south of Hongzepu, fortunately only moved in more than 10,000 households in the past two years, even if there is waterlogging everywhere, the actual damage is not serious, and it is Chuzhou to the east of Hongzepu, the lowest-lying area, and the northern area of Yangzhou on the west side of Fanliang Lake.

In the early years, the three counties of Qinghe, Shanyang, and Jinhu established the military government reclamation system, and the east bank of Hongze East embankment formed an organic whole, the embankment has six large sluices connected to six trunk canals, and the trunk canal has 68 side branch canals, extending to a total of 7.8 million mu of military reclamation tuntian every corner.

The six sluice canals not only ensure the irrigation water in the tun area, but also ensure that the flood water can be quickly and timely directed downstream once the water level of Hongzepu rises.

In the early years of Chuzhou, there were almost 150,000 or 60,000 generals and dependents, who lived and worked in this tun area, and could pay more than 600,000 stone of land rent to the military government every year.

The main force of the Wuya Army's naval division was defeated at Hongzepu, and the east bank embankment was subsequently severely damaged by the Liang army.

However, Huaidong is currently only able to repair two sluices, but the dredging and dredging of the two main canals connecting the two sluices and the eastern Shanyangdu (northern section of Hangou) has not yet been carried out.

In other words, the Junfutun area between Shanyang, Qinghe, and Jinhu counties barely recovered a certain amount of irrigation capacity at this time, but did not restore the flood capacity.

On the day when Wang Wenqian was ordered to rush to Jinhu County to supervise the water situation, the embankment on the north side of Jinhu County burst at night, which caught Wang Wenqian off guard and was helpless.

Not only were hundreds of soldiers and civilians guarding the embankment caught off guard, but several cantonments under the embankment were soon flooded, and the small families had no time to withdraw.

Wang Wenqian, surrounded by Wang Yuan, the commander of Jinhu County, Cai Jing, the general of the garrison, and Yin Peng, climbed a gentle slope in embarrassment, and could only rush to the gap in the embankment bigger and bigger, and in a short time, the breach was opened by the water and was twenty zhang wide, and several awning boats full of sand and gravel did not have time to sink to plug the gap.

With such a large water potential and such a large gap, it was impossible to organize the military and civilians to block it.

In addition to removing the soldiers and civilians from the embankment first, what can be done at present is to collect more boats and boats to pick up as many people as possible who are besieged by the flood.

"The Marquis of Qianyang gathered tens of thousands of people in Shouchun in the first month, and said that Hu Luqi had a vicious heart and wanted to lead the water of the Yu River to flood the Jianghuai, but the Xinwang Mansion did not pay enough attention to it, and thought that the Marquis of Qianyang might have a strange heart, but instead used extremely scarce manpower and material resources to build more than a dozen tunzhai and forts on the west side of Jinhu, and also dug several deep trenches in the north-south direction, but did not requisition the military and civilians to repair the embankment and sluice, and dredge the flood canal, which is really a pity."

Wang Yuan, the commander of Jinhu County, is the son of Wang Wenqian's cousin Wang Huanxing, there are no outsiders on the left and right, and he has no scruples about speaking in front of Wang Wenqian, and he can't help but complain.

Yin Peng stared worriedly at the turbid flood rolling down, covered with a large number of miscellaneous trees and thatch, and even faintly saw some villagers struggling in the water, but he pretended not to hear Wang Yuan's words.

Although the Wang family has always been cautious in front of outsiders at this time, especially after the news that Wang Jun is about to give birth and several doctors have diagnosed that it is likely to be a male, the interior has become more and more hidden.

Yin Peng can also understand this.

Wang Wenqian is currently in a semi-state in Huaidong, usually sick and in the house, and only in an emergency like this time will he be called out to do things.

In addition to Wang Wenqian, the children of the Wang family also have the highest official position in Wang Yuan, but Jinhu County is the upper county, and the rank of the county order is only six grades, and the others are more eight or nine grades or small officials who have not entered the stream at all.

And the number of people who married into Tangyi with Wang Jun, how much time has passed, Wang Yan is currently serving as the governor of Gwangju under Zhou Yi and the commander of Huangchuan County, and he is also a positive sixth product; Wang Zhe was in the Military Intelligence Staff Department and was in charge of the Sixth Rank Office, and Huo Xiao, who was the worst mixed, was also in the Seventh Rank Office of the Capital Department.

And Huo Li and Wang Zhang, as military generals, have more opportunities for promotion in Tangyi, and they are both generals at this time; In particular, Huo Li served as the general of the Tangyi guard cavalry, and his status was higher than that of ordinary generals.

This time, Han Qian responded in a timely manner in Shouchun, recruiting 70,000 or 80,000 young and strong laborers for flood prevention and disaster preparedness three months in advance, and almost did not suffer much heavy losses, while Huaixi delayed until mid-April when the situation was not good, and then transferred young and strong to the embankment to protect the embankment, but the most remote counties, the servants have not yet been transferred, and the embankment collapsed such a big breach, and it is expected that in the next two years, the situation in Huaidong will be as bad as Yanyou for three or four years.

Comparing the two compartments, how can Wang Yuan, who is in his early thirties and has not yet completely sharpened his temper, calm down?

Wang Wenqian's face was gloomy and silent......

(End of chapter)