The Hebei Road in the fifth year of Jiayou Layue is dripping into ice and breathing into frost; The north wind swept away, the grass was withering, and the eyes were full of depression and desolation.

The Yellow River has been frozen, like a silver dragon, lying quietly in the embankment, making people unimaginable in times of disaster. On the embankment on both sides of the river, thousands of people are carrying burdens, pulling carts, carrying cobalt, shovels, and waving, like thousands of ants attached to trees, working hard.

In previous years, the river workers would not exceed the winter solstice at the latest, because the weather after the winter solstice is cold, not only people are prone to frostbite, but it is also time-consuming and laborious to deal with the frozen river embankment, and it is easy to have problems in the coming year.

But half a month has passed since the winter solstice this year, and the river workers still have no intention of stopping. The people slept in simple huts, cold and tired, and many of them froze to death every day. As soon as the morning dawns, some people can't get up anymore, and when they can get up and go to work, the soldiers will pull the dead people out of the whole car......

In the sunny place two miles away from the river embankment to the north, there is a newly built courtyard, which is the office of the river work yamen.

Although it is a temporary place, the building is not mushy at all, and the brick mansion with three entrances in front and back is tightly wrapped in the courtyard wall that is several feet high. The inner dragon is on fire, warm as chūn, and the outside are like two worlds.

In the backyard study, Zhao Zongshi, who was sitting on the hot kang, heard that more than a dozen died last night, and his face was full of unbearable words: "Amitabha, create evil......

"It's too cold." Zhao Conggu had just come in from outside, and he insisted on patrolling the river for a while, and although he was wearing a hòuhòu fur coat, his face and ears were frostbitten, so that his expression was a little unnatural: "Why don't you stop work for the time being, and talk about it in the next year?" ”

"How can it?" Before Zhao Zongshi could speak, his deputy, Shangshu Shuibu Langzhong Han Gang, shook his head and said, "This looks like it's about to be completed." If you stop work now, you will resume work after the autumn harvest next year! ”

"Persistence is death!" Zhao Cong's old-fashioned face was reborn tall and big, and his face had been tanned for several months, quite like Taizu.

But after Han Gang is a famous family, he is not afraid of him at all because he has Zhao Zongshi's support.

Seeing that the two froze, Zhao Zongshi spoke: "If you hold on tightly, how long will it take to close the dragon?" ”

"Ten days at most." Han Gang hurriedly said.

"It will take half a month!" Zhao Conggu frowned.

"That's ten days and half a month...," Zhao Zongshi put on his shoes and went to the ground, pacing: "If you stop at this time, don't say anything else, the mountains of soft and hard materials outside and hundreds of thousands of catties of cement will definitely be destroyed if you can't wait for the start of construction next year." ”

"Go ......," Han Gang nodded hurriedly.

"In recent years, the treasury has been empty, the border war has been tight, and we all know very well how much effort the imperial court has spent in order to make up the money for the control of the river." Zhao Zongshi shook his head and said: "Next year, the Southern Forbidden Army will be added again, and I don't know when the war in the southwest will be?" Where is the money to do it again? ”

"Yes." Han Gang echoed again.

Although Zhao Conggu also nodded, he secretly sneered in his heart, he finally understood why Zhao Zongshi was able to quickly get their refuge after offending the Jiangmen Group.

It turned out that while checking the vacancies, he also promised them that they would make up for it elsewhere in the near future. Sure enough, in the last month, I heard a rumor in the court, saying that in view of the weak army in the south, once something happened, it would be overstretched, and it would be necessary to set up a number of forbidden troops south of the Yangtze River.

It seems reasonable that the addition of the forbidden army was caused by the internal invasion of Jiaozhi. But when Zhao Conggu got the charter for the establishment of the Southern Forbidden Army, he couldn't help but secretly exclaim shamelessness.

The pre-increased seven-way forbidden army is the Yangzhou Army of Huainan East Road, the Luzhou Army of Huainan West Road, the Jiangning Army of Jiangnan East Road, the Hongzhou Army of Jiangnan West Road, the Tanzhou Army of Jinghu South Road, the Yuepu Army of Zhedong Road, and the Fuming Army of Fujian Road...... In the Lingnan region, where more troops are most needed, there is no plan.

In this regard, the Privy Council explained that Lingnan was too far away and the road was rugged, and it was difficult to replenish it. The cost of the permanent army is too high, so it is better to set up troops in Fujian, Hunan and other places to defend the two .......

But in fact, everyone knows that this is because the pampered generals are unwilling to go to the exile to become an official ......, Hunan in this era is an undeveloped remote area, and Lingnan is a point of no return full of miasma and poisonous insects in the eyes of border people.

In the final analysis, these forbidden armies are for unemployed military attaches who have lost their official positions in the process of disarmament. In the subsequent articles issued by the Privy Council, this was also undisguised, requiring that 'all parties select generals who had served as military ministers to be the warlords and other officials'

Of course, when there was this rumor, Zhao Zongshi was already in Hebei, and no one thought that it had anything to do with him at first. But after Zhao Conggu took Zhao Zongji's errand, he didn't look up and look down with him, even if the other party was hiding from him, he also found that Yin Li Zhaoliang and others from the Daimyo Mansion had a great friendship with Zhao Zongshi.

Now seeing that in order not to affect the addition of the forbidden army in the coming year, he actually asked the people to brave the cold to rush to work, and he is even more sure that there must be some promises and exchanges behind this.

Zhao Conggu couldn't help but sneer. There is a saying that 'if you prosper with this, you will die with this", the ancients did not deceive me. This Zhao Zongshi can stand out from the crowd, all relying on his two generations of non-stop relationship, forming a sky net of you and me, and I have you.

With the support of this big net, he can have today's voice. But these people support him, not as an obligation, but as an investment, and everyone expects to get returns from him, although they value long-term returns, but if there are near-term returns that don't interfere with the overall situation, they will also unceremoniously put forward.

In order to satisfy these people, Zhao Zongshi had to do something inappropriate, these things seemed insignificant, and they had no effect at the time. But the embankment of a thousand miles collapsed in the anthill, and once something happened in the future, this was the last straw that broke the camel's back!

Zhao Conggu was a little distracted, and after listening to what Zhao Zongshi said, he made up his mind and said, "What did you say?" ”

"I said, it's all about the big picture." Zhao Zongshi couldn't bear to say: "Just suffer the people, hurry up and finish the work." Said to Han Gang: "Light a charcoal basin in the shacks of the people at night, send a few more quilts, and be sure not to die again." ”

"Your Highness is benevolent," Han Gang said respectfully, "Your subordinates obey orders." ”

"What about the dead ones?" Seeing that they didn't follow, Zhao Conggu had no choice but to ask: "Many bereaved family members came to make trouble, and they were all arrested by the county, and I'm afraid it's not good for this matter to spread out." ”

"You go and ask, and if you catch them, let them go." Zhao Zongshi waved his hand and said, "Lose some money from Hegong's silver." ”

"Okay." Zhao Conggu nodded, and when he saw that everyone was shutting up, he came out with interest.

Leaving the river worker's yamen, he returned to a small courtyard next to it, which was the temporary office of the water supervisor. Naturally, the conditions can't be compared with Zhao Zongshi, but it's still okay to avoid the cold.

As soon as he entered, Cheng Jiah, the water supervisor, greeted him, handed over the hand warmer, took his big coat and said, "How about it, can you stop work?" ”

Zhao Conggu shook his head and sighed: "I turned my face with him, he just ignored it." This is a half-truth, persuasion is persuasion, but not so hard. It's not so much to dissuade as to take yourself out: "He said, just do a good job of keeping the people warm, but you still have to hurry up the construction period."

Jia Yan stumbled and said, "This is not the problem of the people!" It's the weather now, and the river can't be repaired at all. Now, even if you build up the river, you can't keep up with the part before the freeze! Something is going to go wrong in the coming year! “

"No, we have cement for this river repair." Zhao Conggu said: "Hasn't it been tested in the Hongshui River, and it is solid?" “

"Your Highness has seen how the Hongshui River was repaired?" Jia Fan sighed and said: "I have personally gone to see it, Chen Zhongfang repaired the Hongshui River, and he used an iron basket to fill the stones down, and the iron ore and iron ore were connected to each other and became one, and then sealed with cement!" That's impregnable, of course! ”

"But how is it repaired here?" Jia Zhou sighed: "The cement is covered with silt and fine sand, and the embankment foundation sits on the gravel, and once the high water level is soaked, the embankment is easy to soften. When the soil slope at the foot of the embankment is soaked and saturated, it is very easy to collapse under the washing of the flood! ”

Zhao Conggu didn't know much about Jia Xiao's terminology, but he knew that Zhao Zongshi was trying his best to catch up with the construction deadline. Because it is located in a plain, there are no mountains within fifty miles, and it is difficult to get stones, so they put the soil in a sack instead. This method has always been commonly used by river workers, but it is certainly not as strong as using stones.

In addition, the cement produced by the merchants of Hebei Road seems to be of poor quality, and the earliest embankment section has shown signs of softening and cracking......

"Moreover, the river was too narrow to meet the deadline." Jia H continued: "If there is a big flood, the impact on the embankment will be too great, with the current quality, I am afraid of ......" He was brought to the capital water supervisor by Zhao Zongji, and later Zhao Zongji went south and asked him if he wanted to leave with him.

Jia Xiao considered that he was only good at river work, and everything else was sparse, so he refused his kindness and continued to stay in the capital water prison, wanting to do his best for the river work, but Zhao Conggu was not as good as Zhao Zongji, the latter really dared to slap the table with Zhao Zongshi and stare at him, but the former did not dare. So in the past few months, the water supervisor has been in vain, and Jia H is so anxious that he is on fire. came up with this plan to delay the army, hoping that the project would be suspended, and went back to Chen Ke to discuss countermeasures.

"Say no more!" But Zhao Conggu didn't seem to want to offend Zhao Zongshi, shook his head and said, "This matter is settled." ”

"Your Highness..."Jia Gui said in disbelief.

"Alas," Zhao Conggu sighed, "I'll just ask you, since there are so many problems, why don't you report it early?" ”

"This ......," said Jia Chuang with sweat on his forehead: "Because they did not violate the original regulations, and after actual testing, it was found that the design of the river embankment itself was ......questioned."

"So you're going to let me go as an afterthought?" Zhao lowered his face from Gula.

It's really an eventful chūn, my grandfather is seriously ill again, I hope the old man will get better soon, and I hope that the troubles will pass soon. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to calm......