Wuhan Presidential Palace, Lu Liang received detailed minutes of the meeting from San Francisco, as well as a report on Zhang Taiyan admitting his mistakes, Zhang Taiyan did a good job, there is nothing to blame, and even Lu Liang wants to applaud him.

While praising Zhang Taiyan, he couldn't help but laugh at the chaos of the meeting. Is this a formal diplomatic negotiation, how does it feel like it is not much worse than a shrew on the street, maybe this is the norm in international negotiations, but it is not known?

Judging by the record, the Japanese were like dead pigs, and the British, as always, played the role of a-stirring stick. If you want to force Japan to submit, it is not something that can be done by simple talks, and thinking of this, Lu Liang once again thought of the plan that had been in his mind for a long time. In order to control the scale of the war, that order was not given before, and now it seems that this measure has to be taken.

Before the San Francisco negotiations began, Lu Liang was exhausted, not worried about the success of the talks, but because a major event had happened before. Floods in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River have caused huge damage, threatening the survival of tens of millions of people!

After basically controlling the island of Kyushu, there was no need to continue to station large-scale troops there, and the possibility of the Japanese army attacking Kyushu was reduced indefinitely - the soldiers did not even have enough to eat, and the local guerrillas did not need too many troops, so except for the first brigade of the Air Force combat/reconnaissance, the airship units and bomber units all returned home. The Army retains units of the First and Second Armies, and the Marines return home. In addition, the main fleet of the Navy returned home to recuperate, and the destroyer detachment and submarine group continued to maintain a blockade of the waters around Japan. As a result, the army of troops on the front line has only more than 60,000 people. The Navy has only small and medium-sized ships, and the combat scale is small, and the requirements for logistics are several times lower.

Lü Liang could not wait to withdraw a large number of troops. It is also out of helplessness that the demand for logistics in cross-sea operations has exceeded original expectations, and Huaguo is too young to withstand such a large amount of consumption. Even if it can be tolerated, the harm to the country and civilians is not small, and it is very detrimental to economic development and the improvement of national strength. This was the main reason why Lü Liang wanted to end the war.

On July 21, 1905, the Marines returned home and landed in Hangzhou. In addition, several units of the navy and air force also returned to China one after another, but Lu Liang did not spread the news, nor did he hold a large-scale celebration to welcome him. One is that the fighting is not over, and it is only after the end of the negotiations that we can know whether we have gained the most from the war; Second, because the current domestic atmosphere does not allow for frivolous celebrations, major areas such as the Yangtze River basin and the Pearl River basin in the south are facing the threat of flooding.

After greeting the returning troops and carrying out a brief celebration and commendation activities, Lu Liang immediately rushed to the flood control and rescue command center in Changsha. And stayed here until mid-August.

Starting in June of this year. Heavy rainfall in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River basin and abnormal weather have extended the flood season, and the water level in Poyang Lake, Dongting Lake and other areas has skyrocketed, threatening tens of millions of people from flooding.

As early as the 18th century, the Sichuan Basin and the Sichuan-Shaanxi-Chu border area were full of "people" and "shantytowns" from other provinces, and a large number of displaced people entered the deep mountains and old forests. Slash-and-burn farming, no soil and no reclamation. The ancient vegetation has been severely damaged year after year, and the sediment has been exhausted with the rain, and the stones of the old Han Dynasty have been muddy. The catastrophic sediment in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and its tributaries raised the bottom of the river and piled up large swaths of continents in the middle and lower reaches, and farmers reclaimed the islands to block the waterways in order to survive.

In addition, in the late Qing Dynasty, political corruption and water conservancy were in disrepair, and the "vascular blockage" of the Yangtze River became more and more serious. In the late Qing Dynasty, even the Sha Tin Bureau in the city, regardless of whether the waterway was accessible or not, specialized in selling sediment as a business. Dongting Lake, Poyang Lake and other areas have surrounded the lake and cultivated fields, so that the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in Wuhua Tianbao have lost their basic function of drought resistance and drainage, and either there will be floods or no major droughts.

After the Northern Expedition, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were brought under the rule of the Chinese state, and the man-made damage was exacerbated by Lü Liang's one-sided emphasis on economic development and neglect of the protection of the local environment. In particular, the popularization of high-yield rice varieties and the popularization of scientific farming and agricultural machinery have greatly improved the rural labor force, and a large amount of wasteland and barren beaches have been reclaimed, which objectively increases the destructiveness of floods.

Genetic people are rigid in thinking, ordinary people are not aware of the importance of environmental protection due to the limitations of the times, and Lu Liang, who has only experienced environmental protection, is too anxious. In this day and age, having enough to eat is the first problem, everything else has to make way for this, the country is poor and has sunk for too long, and everyone is intoxicated with the joy of rapid development, without realizing that disaster is coming.

Although there has been no conscious effort to protect the environment, the construction of water conservancy facilities in the south over the past year or so since the founding of the People's Republic of China is not the same as that of the old society, especially in the three provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, and Fujian, where the construction of large and small reservoirs, dams, drainage facilities, and irrigation canals has kept the flood disaster within a very small range.

The construction of water conservancy facilities in Lianghu and Liangjiang provinces is mainly focused on irrigation of farmland, and the repair and consolidation of dams on the main and tributaries of the Yangtze River is not on the government's work agenda, which is also the main reason for the repeated dangers in various places after the arrival of floods. The investment required for the construction of large-scale water conservancy facilities is not a small amount, and the government may be able to support this expenditure, but the resources produced by domestic industry are limited, and all cement and steel are basically exhausted for roads, railways, construction, military and other purposes.

In the flood control and rescue command center, Lu Liang was listening to the report of the headquarters, and the situation did not deteriorate to the point of being unbearable. 200,000 regular troops and 300,000 reserve troops are fighting in key areas of the Yangtze River's main and tributaries, local people are also organized by the government, young and middle-aged people form rescue teams, and civilians in dangerous areas are safely evacuated. According to current statistics, more than 4 million people were affected by the disaster, and the area of the affected fields was more than 9 million mu, and the number of casualties caused by the flood was 453, including the masses and the soldiers fighting the flood.

In addition, sandbags, tents, food, medicines and other flood relief materials have been able to quickly transport to the front line of flood resistance due to the development and road construction in the past two years, but the roads in mountainous areas and other areas are difficult to travel, and many places are blocked by flood landslides, and the progress of flood control and rescue there is slow. Trucks, jeeps, and other means of transport played a huge role in the troops, and the 200 assault boats brought from the Jiangnan shipyard in Shanghai also played an indispensable role in fighting the floods.

Because of the floods, this immature system has become lubricated through organization and operation, from the government to the military, and it can be said that no country has a stronger organizational capacity than China.

Compared with the 1931 flood and the 98 flood in later generations, the scale of the flood in 1905 was not too large. There are too many natural disasters in Chinese history, and large-scale disasters are not uncommon, in feudal society, and even in the Republic of China period, the chaos of the political situation and the neglect of civilians led to a huge number of casualties, and it is difficult to see a detailed record of disasters in historical books.

The fact that it is not recorded does not mean that the losses are not large, and the feudal and Republican rulers can turn a blind eye to huge natural disasters, but Lu Liang cannot, and the Chinese government cannot. Everyone has the right to live, everyone has the right to demand protection from the ruler, and when the people of a country can unite in the event of a disaster, then the country will not be easily defeated!

Since the floods, the propaganda organs have temporarily reduced their coverage of the war and have turned to long-winded reports on the floods, floods, and flood fighting. Rather than hiding his mistakes, Lü Liang published an article in an official newspaper acknowledging the cause of the floods, emphasizing the human factor and placing most of the blame on his own neglect. In addition, the casualties caused by the flood are also fully disclosed, including every step of the flood control and every danger.

The government's candor has ensured the people's right to know to the greatest extent, and the people have not poured their dissatisfaction on the government, but have erupted with great enthusiasm. Entrepreneurs, including major consortia, not only donated a large amount of funds for flood fighting, but also organized a large number of materials to be transported to the front line.

Shanghai, the largest commercial city and the most populous city in the Far East, prospered before the founding of the People's Republic of China by relying on the colonial trade of foreign powers, and became a paradise for compradors and foreigners, and a fertile ground for gangsters. The resources of the whole country were plundered by various means by the foreign powers, and then gathered in Shanghai, and then the merchant ships of the foreign powers were transported, and the merchant ships carried the industrial products of the foreign powers, and exchanged the high-priced industrial manufactured products for cheap resources.

After the liberation, Shanghai's economic status was further improved, as a large city and a large port covering the entire Yangtze River basin, Shanghai assumed new responsibilities, she became a transit base for China's economic operation, and allocated resources and industrial products from all over the country, and believed that with the reunification of the country and foreign expansion, Shanghai's economy will be more prosperous. A large amount of capital took a fancy to Shanghai's extremely superior conditions, and opened a large number of factories here, so Shanghai has become the fastest economic growth area in China.

With a population of more than one million, Shanghai is supported by a large number of capitalists and businessmen, and as the main body, it is the workers, employees, small traders, service workers and students who serve the upper class, and these people are the main reason for Shanghai's vitality. (To be continued.) )