From the capital to Huai'an, all the way is by water, the cabin is day and night, and everyone does not see any hardship. Su Hao chatted with Xu Guangzu every day about the march and battle, and discussed some ideas on river control with Ma Yu and others, and gradually formed some ideas of his own.

After the boat crossed Weishan Lake, Su Hao asked the boatmen not to take the middle canal, but to turn to the direction of Xuzhou, taking the section of the Yellow River between Xuzhou and Huai'an, which is the section of the river where the imperial court appointed Su Hao to assist Pan Jitao in governance.

The boat was running on the Yellow River, Su Hao and others stood at the bow of the boat, looking up, they could see that there were majestic embankments on both sides of the river, which firmly bound the turbid water of a river in the river and could not rage on both banks. On the embankment, there are servants who come and go, carrying carts and carrying earth and rocks to continue to raise the embankment. Not far away, you can see several managers wearing official uniforms or official uniforms, pointing fingers at the servants. A few times, Su Hao also saw the scene of the manager whipping the servant, this kind of thing could not be regarded as an atrocity in that era, and the people around him were calm about it.

During the dry season of the Yellow River, the water level of the river was not high, and people on the boat could not see the ground outside the embankment. However, judging by the tops of the large trees that exposed the river embankment, Su Hao knew that this section of the river was far above the ground and had become a new overland hanging river. Once the levee bursts, the river does not know where it will rush.

"The Yellow River is more than three inches higher in a year, and it can be raised by one zhang in 30 years. Ma Yu said.

Jiang Yida also said: "Since the Song and Yuan dynasties, the Yellow River has been diverted many times, and each diversion has left a section of such a mountain beam, which divides the entire lower reaches of the Huai River into one depression after another, and many places have become lakes due to water accumulation, and they can no longer be cultivated. This is where the suffering of the people originates. ”

"Our mission this time is called river governance, and in fact, the river, Huai, and transportation must be managed. For so many years, the strategy of the imperial court was to sacrifice the people on both sides of the Huai River to ensure the transportation of the trough, and the price paid was too great. I hope that we can bring some benefits to the people by coming here. Su Hao said.

The passenger boat walked on the Yellow River for another three days, passing through Fangcun, Xiapi, Zhongwu, Taoyuan, Qingkou and other water stations along the way, and finally came to Huai'an Port.

From a distance, Su Hao saw a group of people standing on the port wharf, all in thin clothes, standing in the cold wind and looking out towards the canal. The closer the boat is, the more clearly you can see, most of them are men, ranging from sixty or seventy to thirteen or fourteen years old, and occasionally there are a few women, mixed in with the crowd of men, who seem to be a little cramped, but not willing to stay out of the circle.

All of them had some common characteristics, that is, their clothes were patched on top of each other, and their gray faces showed a bit of vegetables, and they were obviously a group of people who were extremely poor.

Before the boat docked, those people began to shout, some spoke Huai'an local dialect, and some spoke official dialect, but in the noise, Su Hao couldn't hear it. Seeing that those people were waving and shouting again, Su Hao was very surprised, and hurriedly called the boss of the boat to ask what was going on.

"It's all carried on the docks." The captain said, "I can do both long and short jobs, and if you give them a few buns, you can hire them to work for a day." If you catch up with Huai'an to be an official and do business, and you want to buy a few slaves, girls, etc., you can also do it, and the price is not expensive. ”

"It's just a slave, why are there still girls?" Su Hao asked, "I see that among these people, although there are also a few women, but that age is to be an old mother, how can there be a girl in her forties or fifties." ”

Boat Old Dao: "Of course this little girl can't mix with a group of big men, they are all waiting on the side." When the ship is docked, you go ashore and take a look, and there is a squatting under the wall, not a hundred but fifty. You can buy one for a few dozen dollars. ”

"Dozens of ......" Su Hao only felt sweating, he was a person anyway, how could it be worth dozens of dollars.

The boat boss shook his head and said, "Official, you have been in the capital for a long time, and you don't know the suffering of this people." Last year and this year, the Huai River was flooded, and the crops in the field stopped nine out of ten. These people are all victims of the disaster in the surrounding countryside, and it would be good if they could escape to the city of Huai'an, where the government gave porridge twice a day, and they could also do odd jobs to earn some money when they had the opportunity. If you can be sold into a big family, at least you can eat. Those who don't have the ability to escape are miserable, eating tree bark, eating Guanyin soil, and even eating people. ”

"Are you saying that if these people can be sold into slavery, it is a kind of luck?" Su Hao asked.

Chuanlao Daodao: "What the official said is exactly, this slave is not a slave, how can it be important to have a full stomach?" ”

Su Hao really wanted to talk to the boat boss about the universal principle of "not free, rather than die", after thinking about it for a while, he couldn't help but laugh self-deprecatingly, only people who have never been hungry will talk about what not to eat food, the problem of survival cannot be solved, and talking about other things is purely a pain in the egg.

"Lao Chen, come over here." Su Hao turned around and shouted.

"Proprietor, I'm here." Chen Guanyu arrived. Since Su Hao was appointed as the director of the Ministry of Industry, he officially rehired Chen Guanyu as his master, and Chen Guanyu's title to Su Hao has also changed from the original "Master Su" to "proprietor". If it weren't for the fear of calling Su Hao old, he would have liked to call Su Hao "Dong Weng", which is said to be even more bullish.

Su Hao whispered a few words to Chen Guanyu, and Chen Guanyu nodded again and again. Su Hao called a few soldiers from the Kanyu Battalion and asked them to change into civilian clothes, and accompanied Chen Guanyu to do some secret things later.

The boat came ashore, and the shouts of those on the shore rushed up, and the shouts became more urgent:

"Uncle, do you want to carry luggage?"

"Official, do you want to hire a caretaker, I have practiced in Shaolin Temple."

"Official, do you want a girl on the kang, my daughter is only fourteen, and she looks very smart......"

Everyone shouted and shouted, and they still kept order to some extent, and did not dare to block the passage of merchants to go ashore. Deng Kui shouted on the boat, and a group of soldiers from the survey battalion got off the boat first with spears, the tips of the spears flashing with cold light, facing the group of people who were carrying the work. Those people were immediately dumbfounded, and one by one subconsciously took a few steps back, just silently looking at Su Hao and the others who were disembarking from the boat after them with hopeful eyes, and they didn't dare to make too much of a mistake.

"I asked, in the past, there was a person who carried work in order to grab business, and disturbed the officials who were passing by Huai'an, and the entourage of the officials took action and hacked five to death on the spot." Jiang Yida walked beside Su Hao and introduced in a low voice.

"Who did it? And then? Su Hao asked in astonishment.

Jiang Yida smiled coldly and said, "I didn't ask who did it." However, I heard afterwards that it was a matter of losing a few dollars of money to each of the sufferers' families. For these people, what is the difference between being killed or starving to death, no one will make trouble about how many people die. ”

"In troubled times, people's lives are as cheap as dogs, and the ancients are honest and don't deceive me." Su Hao sighed.

"What Brother Gai said is bad, now it is a peaceful and prosperous world, if you let the official hear this, I will take a copy of you, and it will be enough for you to bear it." Ma Yu reminded on the side.

Su Hao shook his head and stopped arguing with them. Looking at the appearance of these victims in front of him, he felt a heavy heart. In the late Ming Dynasty, there were continuous disasters and famines, and the people were displaced, which eventually led to a peasant uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty was destroyed. If the imperial court could eliminate these hidden dangers in time, why would the powerful Ming Dynasty collapse.

The officials from the Ministry of Industry and Huai Anwei who came to greet Su Hao and his party have also arrived, and since Su Hao is not a big official, there was no welcoming ceremony on the dock, but the two sides met each other and said a few words.

Su Hao has the dual identity of both the Ministry of Industry and the military, and in this regard, the Ministry of Industry and Huai'anwei also coordinated. As a result of the coordination, the Ministry of Industry arranged an official office for Su Hao in Huai'an City, called the River Chief Yamen, referred to as the Chief Yamen. Su Hao, along with Chen Guanyu, Ma Yu, Jiang Yida, Tan Qi and others, all lived in the main yamen, the front yamen was the office space, and the back yamen was their residence.

On the Huai'an side, it was responsible for providing places for Deng Kui and the soldiers of the survey camp, including a survey camp in Huai'an City, a Qianhu yamen, and a barracks outside the city. The day-to-day command of the survey camp was in charge of the deputy Qianhu Deng Kui, so he was stationed in the yamen of the survey camp. In the future, the survey camp will have to recruit and train troops, and these tasks will be completed in the barracks outside the city.

Xu Guangzu, as a consultant specially hired by Su Hao, settled in the chief yamen with Su Hao. In addition, Su Hao also brought five embroidery girls, because he was worried that it would be inconvenient for them to live with the soldiers, so they also settled in the chief yamen. Su Hao didn't bring his family to take office, and just vacated the small courtyard for the officials' families to live in.

Su Hao brought more than fifty soldiers with him, so there was no need to hire a porter to help carry the luggage. The people on the dock watched for a while, and then left in a huff. No one noticed that Chen Guanyu and a few soldiers of the survey battalion in civilian clothes were also mixed in with them, and they didn't know what to do.

The contact person sent by the Ministry of Industry is named Zhang Xiang, who is a warden of the Ministry of Industry's Water Division. He led Su Hao and the others and walked for two quarters of an hour before coming to the chief yamen. According to Zhang Xiang, this is the original Huai'an Mansion What kind of warehouse ambassador's yamen, and later this warehouse didn't know how to withdraw or move, so the site of the yamen was vacated.

After receiving the news from the imperial court that Su Hao and others had come to take office, Huai'an Mansion specially sent someone to clean up and repair this courtyard, and hung up a sign, and it became the yamen of the river chief.

When Su Hao and the others arrived, the gate of the chief yamen was hidden, and there was no door to stand guard at the door. Zhang Xiang pushed open the gate, walked in first, and shouted loudly into the courtyard:

"Lao Zhang, Lao Li, come out quickly, Master Su has arrived!"