The long flow of history has quietly entered the eighth year of Yanyou, and the founding of Great Chu has also entered the twenty-fifth year.

Ordinary people will not care about the strength of the Mengwu people and the wreak havoc and killing in the Hehuai region, and will not care about the deeper internal and external troubles.

Seven years have passed since the rebellion in Jinling, the inner and outer cities of Jinling have also been renovated, the Qiupu River and the river are like clouds, the three mountains and five seas enter the Jinling City with a dazzling array of commercial goods, piled up like a mountain, and the Jinling City also reproduces the prosperous scene of the past.

Externally, the homeland of Huaixi was also recovered, and the Liang State was forced to negotiate peace, while the Shu State paid tribute and called the vassals, and cut each other with the land of Kip and Liang; To the south, it captured Gui, Liu, Yong, Qin and other prefectures, and almost captured nearly one-third of the territory of the Qingyuan Army's Jiedu Embassy, so that the empire's territory was almost thousands of miles south.

Thinking about it this way, the fiasco of the main force of the water division in the three or four years of Yanyou above Hongzepu has become insignificant.

Just after the Spring Festival, the weather has not warmed up, and there is another heavy snowfall in Huaixi.

Han Qian woke up early in the morning and saw that the Lianyuan Garden was also covered in silver, but unfortunately, the snow in the courtyard before and after the study was trampled beyond recognition by Wen Xin, who got up early, Wen Yuan was taken by Wen Yuan.

waited for Wenxin to be arrested by the guards and go to the academy to study, so that he was a little quieter.

Han Qian hugged his daughter Wenyuan on his knees and read the official letter.

There is no emergency incident in this year's festival, Han Qian is also a rare rest for a few days, there is no director, today is the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, he is the first time to walk into the end of the rain pavilion in his study where he specializes in acting official affairs in Liyang Lianyuan, and he saw that the case was piled up with a large stack of various official letters waiting for him to read.

Now Zhao Ting'er is more focused on the construction and improvement of Liyang Academy, and Wang Jun finally confirmed that she was pregnant a few years ago, Han Qian didn't feel that there was any fuss, but everyone discouraged Wang Jun from touching things that consumed his mind during the period of safe fetal rearing.

After a few persuasions, Wang Jun has not come to the Moyu Pavilion much in recent years.

Han Qian has no way to be lazy about many things.

Routine affairs have all been drafted with regulations, and before there are major changes, the General Administration Department, the Metropolitan Department Department, the Engineering Department and the Military Intelligence Staff Department are all handled in accordance with the regulations, and they only need to be reported to Han Qian.

However, the internal and external environment and situation of Tangyi are extremely complex, and it can be said that they are changing rapidly, and a large number of unconventional affairs require Han Qian's decision to make decisions.

That's a lot of work.

On the first day of Han Qian's year, he went to the end of the rain pavilion to do business, and in the early morning, he took a quick time to read the official letter that had been reported, and then he took his daughter Wen Yuan to eat breakfast in the wing room of the end of the rain pavilion, and after the sun climbed the treetops, Feng Yi, Yuan Guowei, Ji Xiyao, Gao Shao, Zhao Qi, Chen Jitang, Wen Bo, Tan Yuliang, Xi Xunqiao, Zhao Wuji and others came over with a bunch of unconventional affairs to be discussed.

Han Qian hugged Wen Yuan and discussed with everyone.

"After more than a year of construction and trial production, the Datongling Coal Mine will be able to dump coal and stone into the Gyeonggi area on a larger scale after the year. As the largest shallow coal yard currently built in Tangyi, the Datongling Coal Mine has a huge cost of construction investment in the early stage, but it is currently expected to produce up to 1 million quintals of coal per year. ”

Ji Xiyao, who is also in charge of the Department of Industry and Construction, is currently in charge of the repair and construction of water conservancy roads and cities owned by the government, as well as the construction of coal and iron mines, and the Bureau of Industry and Construction.

The Datongling Coal Mine was the key work promoted by the government at the end of the previous year, and even before that, Shiliang County was first asked for from Huaidong.

The mining of coal mines, especially the mining of shallow coal, is not a difficult matter, the key is the laying of the rail road from the Datongling Coal Mine to the Shiliang River Wharf, the construction of the Puyang River Coal Transport Wharf and the excavation of the Yongyang Canal connecting the Puyang River and the Shiliang River, and a series of supporting projects, which have been completed one after another a year ago, and the large-scale export of the Datongling Coal Mine to the outside world has become possible.

With the completion of the Datongling Coal Mine, the annual mining volume of Huaixi coal suddenly increased from 600,000 quintals to 1.6 million quintals, and at this time, it was inevitable to take down the entire Gyeonggi region, which was also the first coal market cultivated by Han Qian, so that it was possible to eat up such a large-scale output.

Whether to reduce the price of coal supply to Gyeonggi by 30% or directly by 50%, and directly crush the coal yards near Gyeonggi, Feng Yi, Ji Xiyao, who is in charge of the Department of Industry and Manufacturing, and other relevant officials, have discussed for a long time and have not yet made up their minds.

In addition, the Industrial Engineering Division has surveyed a large reserve of high-quality iron ore in Dayao Peak, which is fifteen or sixteen miles south of Datongling, and there is a great controversy within the Industrial Engineering Division for the development and utilization of this iron ore.

On the one hand, after all the iron-making furnaces invested in the past two years are put into production, the annual iron-making scale of Tangyi will reach 160,000 quintals, which is almost the total annual output of Guanye in the middle of the previous dynasty.

Many people are worried that the demand for iron in the Jianghuai region is not as huge as imagined, and they advocate that Yongyang County or Chuzhou Government should be responsible for building an iron-making plant with an annual output of 10,000 quintals in Dayaofeng.

Some people think that it is extremely rare to find high-quality coal and iron storage at the same time in such a close area, and it is a pity not to build a large-scale ironworks.

The Mopan Valley on the south side of Dayao Peak has relatively flat and open land, which can build a large-scale iron-making yard, while Datongling only needs to build a nine-mile-long rail road on the basis of the current rail road, and can transport coal and stone to the iron-making yard planned to be built in the Mopan Valley, and advocates that the government directly come forward to build a large-scale iron-making yard with an annual output of 50,000 quintals or even larger.

This matter was reported to Han Qian at the end of last year.

Han Qian handed it over to Feng Yi for further study on whether it was possible to combine the construction of a new city in Yongyang County with the investment in a large-scale ironworks.

Of course, most officials of the Department of Communications and Political Affairs are still worried that an iron-making plant will have to add 50,000 or even 100,000 quintals of production capacity, and the other seven iron-making yards that have already been built will have to expand their production capacity in the future, and will they be able to dump more than 300,000 quintals of iron every year in the future.

After all, the largest Longya Mountain ironworks at present only produce 40,000 quintals of pig iron and refined iron per year.

The larger the scale of the iron-making yard, the lower the cost, not to mention that the new iron-making technology can still be mined in a very broad space in the world.

In fact, as long as the cost is low enough, the performance of fine iron castings is much better than that of traditional wood, and the future application scenarios are extremely wide, Han Qian will not worry that the demand will become a problem.

In fact, the amount of iron used for an ordinary iron girder bridge is unimaginably high, and even if 300,000 or 400,000 quintals of iron are smelted every year, it may only be enough to build 30 or 40 medium-sized iron bridges in the Jianghuai region.

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The demand for iron was as much as officials could have imagined when iron products were limited to knives, farm tools, and armor.

At present, Han Qian is more concerned about the new iron-making yard, how low the average cost can be when the production capacity is set at 50,000 quintals or 100,000 quintals, and at the same time, he is also concerned about the current technical level of the engineering institute and whether it has the ability to build a larger-scale iron-making blast furnace.

This is also the key to Han Qian's letter from the Ministry of Engineering and Manufacturing for further discussion and research a few years ago.

In particular, whether the blast furnace technology can successfully make a breakthrough is the key to further and significantly reduce the cost of ironmaking.

In addition, the Institute of Engineering has long confirmed that high-quality block smoldered coal is used to fill the furnace, and there is a direct relationship between the furnace temperature and the structural data such as the extension of the furnace.

If a large blast furnace with sufficient stability can be further constructed, it is likely that it will be possible to achieve the furnace temperature of melting river sand, which will be the key to the success of glass firing.

At present, the iron-making furnace in Longya Mountain is found to be sandwiched with crystals similar to glass, but cleaner.

It can be seen that the iron-making furnace in Longya Mountain can barely reach the furnace temperature of melting river sand and sintering glass, but in order to stabilize the sintered glass, the structure of the combustion furnace needs to be further optimized.

Han Qian looked at the discussion conclusions of the General Administration Department and the Industrial Manufacturing Department during this time, and the Institute of Engineering and Engineering is still in the research stage of the new blast furnace, and has not yet started to build the first test furnace in an ironmaking field.

After discussing with everyone for a while, Han Qian decided to try to build a test blast furnace in Dayao Mountain, wait to see the operation of the test blast furnace, and then decide on the construction of Yongyang New City and the final construction scale of Dayao Mountain Iron Works.

There is one more thing that needs to be decided immediately.

In the past two years, Huaixi has successively recovered Haoshou, Guanghuo and other prefectures, and the counties under the jurisdiction of the government have increased from the original 14 counties (including Xuzhou) to 42 counties, and the number of township divisions has increased from 96 to 274.

After more than a year and a half of sorting and digestion, the situation of the newly recovered and newly established counties and townships has generally stabilized in all aspects, and further in-depth construction and operation will be carried out in the future.

A few years ago, it was decided to set up junior schools in these newly established township divisions, and at the county level, intermediate schools should be added.

The two-year school system of the junior school can only meet the basic needs of literacy for ordinary people, and the standard for completing the course is only to read 1,000 Chinese characters, read through simple articles, master basic calculations, and teach some basic farming techniques.

The content taught in the intermediate school is deeper and more extensive, and will include law, arithmetic, geography, surveying, gewu, and military foundation, while also ensuring the continuing education of local officials and engineers; The education and training of military attachés in the garrison will also be undertaken by the intermediate schools in each county.

Only by combining it with a comprehensive school can the government-run education system be initially perfected.

The problem is that nearly 200 new primary schools and intermediate schools have been added at once, and at present, the Liyang Academy, which was officially established three years ago, can only provide less than 100 teachers this year, and the total number of teachers is less than 200 from other places.

It's impossible to send just one instructor to support a school, right?

At present, the schools run by the county and township departments are allocated to two to five teachers according to the size of the number of students.

Even so, the existing school teachers are still in a very short supply; The primary schools run by the township department can only ensure that about 20 percent of the local teenagers receive the most basic literacy education.

For a long time to come, the government-run education target in Huaixi will only ensure that the illiteracy rate of 20% of the new population will be eliminated, and it is difficult to expect it to be higher in the short term.

Even so, the population size of Huaixi will remain the same as it is at present, and the annual enrollment in primary schools will be as high as 50,000 or 60,000, and only two to three percent of them will be able to receive secondary and higher comprehensive school education.

If this can be done, Tangyi will be able to completely solve the disadvantages of monopolizing education and then monopolizing local officials and military affairs, and can also provide necessary human resources for the jurisdiction of the prefecture, county and township departments over the local government and the development of industry, mining and manufacturing at this stage.

Just now, more than 200 junior and intermediate schools will be added all of a sudden, and we need to find ways to transfer 4 to 600 teachers from various places.

Where are these manpower coming from?

Don't look at the available manpower cultivated by Tangyi over the years, but the stalls are larger.

In order to ensure the training quality of engineers and physician apprentices, Han Qian subsequently extended the school system of Chenzhong and Liyang School to three to four years, and the highest school system of the physician hospital was extended to five years.

As a result, the qualified students that the three schools can provide stably every year are only about 1,000 at present, but these 1,000 people are competing everywhere.

Feng Yi thought that this year, regardless of category, he would recruit another 600 graduates to open the school of the new township division, and many people were eager to spray spit in his face, but in desperation, he could only hand it over to Han Qian to decide.

The state and county township officials are also in short supply, and all tasks are heavy, Han Qian took the list of students who can graduate from Liyang School this year handed over by Feng Yu, swept it, and said: "The children of the Han family and Chen Qiao and other families will be put down first to fill the gap in township school......

"This ......" Hearing Han Qian's decision, Feng Yu was quite hesitant.

After the Tangyi army first established a defensive line along the Chuhe River and Fucha Mountain, and then won the victory of Wujinling and obtained the advantage of suppressing the Shouzhou army in Huaixi, Chen Qiao and other states such as Xuanchi and other states, and the old family lords who had in-laws with the Han family, suddenly accelerated the process of integrating into Tangyi.

There were two main landmark initiatives at the time.

First, in addition to taking the initiative to suspend the slave and maid trade in Xuanchi and other places, and entering Donghu to set up workshops and planting medicinal fields, these in-laws mainly transferred their clan property to the official money bureau on a large scale to support the military expenditure of the Tangyi army and the construction of Huaixi locality.

This is also the key to the total capital of the official money bureau successively crossing the two thresholds of 4 million and 5 million.

The second is that these in-laws have successively sent 500 descendants and collateral children with a certain family foundation to Liyang School to receive the cultivation of Xinxue.

The first batch of children of the Han family's in-laws and clans who entered the school had the most, almost more than three hundred and twenty people, after all, the in-laws and clans in Xuanchi and other places, twelve or thirteen-year-old boys, and a large number of young people who were twenty-three or four-year-old had no way out, and they all entered the Liyang School together, just in time for the graduation after the year.

Although the teachers of the primary school of the township department are also included in the list of officials in the establishment government, and the salary is also allocated by the state and county, the conditions of the township department are currently coming

It can be said that it is quite difficult, and it is obviously a bit different from the psychological expectations of Chen Qiao and other children who want to serve as officials in the state and county government departments.

If according to a fixed proportion, people are transferred from all departments of Liyang Academy, and it is inevitable that some of the children of the in-laws and clans will be filled in the township school by official affairs, and Feng Yi is naturally not afraid of being pointed at and scolded.

It's good now, this time all the children of the in-laws clan, especially a few descendants of Chen Qiao and other families, were already in their early twenties when they entered the hall, and they were full of expectations for serving as officials in Tangyi, and they were all sent to the most difficult conditions of the township junior school as teachers, dealing with the children of mud legs, not to mention that Chen, Qiao and other families were dissatisfied, these graduates must not make a fuss?

"If someone asks about it, it will be my decision to say directly, the children of the clan are arrogant and extravagant, and it is possible to grow into a pillar of talent only if they can go to the township department and the township to learn, and really get in touch with the lives of the poor at the bottom," Han Qian said, "In the future, this rule will be formed, and those who really want to serve as officials in the state and county must have experience in grassroots work." The Chen family, the Qiao family, and the Feng family are no exception, the Han family, and the Wen family are no exceptions, and your children and nephews will be like this in the future. ”

Seeing Han Qian say this, everyone was silent.

"With your words, I can also use it to shut everyone's mouths." Feng Yi said with a wry smile.

After many things were discussed, it was almost noon before I knew it.

Before the New Year's Festival passed, Han Qian asked the house to arrange a luncheon and leave everyone to dine in Lianyuan, but before they could leave for the dining room, they saw Wang Jun walking in with Xiangyun with a shy body, and said, "There is a flying pigeon in Xingzhou who has come back from the book......

The selection, breeding and training of carrier pigeons are all delicate work, not ordinary people's work; In order to form an emergency communication system, it is not only necessary to breed in multiple locations at the same time, but also to train and raise carrier pigeons in large quantities, which requires a lot of manpower - the social division of labor is not to a certain extent, or there is no large enough team of officials, this thing is not something that ordinary forces can play.

Fortunately, Tangyi has the tradition of female workers and female officials, and the dependents of the generals of each family do not have the habit of raising a short family in the boudoir, and the atmosphere is more open than that of the current world and its predecessors.

For the selection and training of carrier pigeons, as well as the rotation of the pigeon nest, Han Qian specially opened a new department in the Military Intelligence Staff Department, which was responsible for Xiangyun and was dedicated to female officials.

Xingzhou is currently the focus of confrontation and contention between the Hehuai Liang army and the Weizhou rebels and the Mengwu people, and in order to keep abreast of the changes in the war situation in Xingzhou, the Military Intelligence Staff Department sent a number of secret spies to Xingzhou.

Even if there is no urgent information, in order to ensure the homing attribute of the carrier pigeons, it will not be cut north because of long-term staying, and a new batch of carrier pigeons will be sent to Xingzhou on a regular basis, so that the previous batch of carrier pigeons will fly back to the pigeon nest, which is extremely expensive.

It's not an emergency, Xiangyun won't send the book over directly, Han Qian took the secret letter of the wax paper that had been opened and the note that had been analyzed, and sat there with a frown and didn't know what to do for a while, and a chill ran down his spine.

Feng Yu took the note, frowned slightly, and said, "The Weizhou rebels are digging the embankment on the south bank of the Yu River (Yellow River) on the northeast side of Xingyang at this time? Are they going to wait for the ice of the Yellow River to melt, and then divert the flood to the east and south of Xingyang City? ”

Han Qian looked around after a while, and saw that everyone had guessed what Liang Shixiong's intentions were in Xingyang, but it was obvious that everyone had not realized the seriousness of this matter in a hurry.

Four or five hundred years ago, the forest coverage rate in the Guanzhong area was still extremely dense, but the two generations of the Central Plains Dynasty had their capital on the banks of the Weishui River, and the ecological carrying capacity was severely tested.

The old dynasty of Gyeonggi (Jingzhaofu), which was dominated by Yongzhou, had more than 2 million households at the peak of the previous dynasty.

If it is an ordinary household, it is fine, but among these people, a large number of them are the children of the nobles of the clan, and their lives are extremely luxurious, and the Guanzhong area has continued to build palaces and palaces for hundreds of years.

Almost in the middle of the previous dynasty, Guanzhong wanted to repair the main hall, not to mention the hills in the north, and the northern slope of the Qinling Mountains in the south, there was no big wood that could be used as the foundation pillar of the house beam, and it was necessary to transport it to Guanzhong from more places regardless of manpower and material resources.

This change in the ecological environment, from the Yellow River water from clear to turbid in the middle of the previous dynasty, has been clearly recorded in the history books, and it is also at this time that the name of the Yellow River in the folk gradually replaced the old name of the Yu River.

This was followed by two hundred years of sediment accumulation.

Even if Han Qian was not sure whether the Yellow River had completely become a hanging river on the ground at this time, he was also worried about the fact that the Yellow River had burst its banks several times in the past hundred years, each time becoming more and more serious, and the embankments on both sides of the Yellow River had become higher and higher.

In the last years of the previous dynasty, although there were constant wars in the Hehuai region, the Hehuai region had always been occupied by extremely powerful feudal forces, so the Yellow River could be blocked very quickly every time it burst.

Another reason is that in the past 100 years, even if it has been invaded by Lingxin, most of the openings of the Yellow River have been relatively easy to plug the breaches in the lower reaches and between Lu and Henan, which have a wide range of flood areas, or from Weibo and other places to the north of the Heshuo area, which has a relatively light impact on the Hehuai area on the south bank of the Yellow River.

The Weizhou rebels dug up the embankment of the Yellow River in Xingyang, and their intention may have been simply to block the passage of the Hehuai Liang army approaching Xingyang City, the eastern gateway of Heluo, but the location northeast of Xingyang City was too critical.

Han Qian didn't know if Liang Shixiong had specially chosen to dig the embankment at this location, or if it was all just a coincidence.

Han Qian spread out the map and marked the rebel embankment point on the map, which was indeed on the west side of the Jialu River gate, which meant that the embankment at this location would be opened, and the Yellow River would rush out of the riverbed, which was actually very likely to be higher than the flat land on both sides, and follow the terrain to drain into the Jialu River (chasm), and then invade the Shaying River in the south.

In February and March, the river water is dry and thin, and the problem is not big, but in April, various places have entered the rainy season, and the meltwater of the glaciers in the northwest plateau has increased greatly, and the amount of water entering the Jialu River and Shaying River in the upper reaches of the Yellow River will be so large that it will be heart-pounding.

The channels of these two rivers are shallow and narrow, and they cannot accommodate such a large amount of water, which will inevitably lead to the Xuxing, Chen, Song and other prefectures on both sides of the Jialu River and Shaying River becoming a vast ocean, and will also directly affect the two prefectures of Ying and Qian on the north bank of the Huai River.

After the water of the Yellow River flows into the Huai River through the Shaying River, if the middle and lower reaches of the Huai River and the prefectures and counties along Hongzepu catch up with the rainfall of last year, the two phases will be superimposed, and the floods will be monstrous, and Chusi, Chuyang and other places will be greatly affected, and Shouchun and Haozhou will not be spared.

This is the artificial "seizure of the Huai into the sea", artificially creating a large area of the Yellow Flood in the land of the Hehuai.