The chief of the General Staff is a high-ranking position, and his right to speak is no worse than that of the military department. At present, when there is no military secretary, the chief of the general staff is equivalent to the military department. However, the Chief of the General Staff cannot lead the army, this is the system.

Zheng Jie asked himself to personally command the campaign to attack Dadu from Zhigu Village, and after being approved by the Zhao official family, Zheng Jie was reminded that he must resign from the post of chief of general staff. At this time, there was a lot of excitement in the military department, and many people were talking about who would replace the chief of the general staff.

Some say that Zheng Jie may become the next secretary of the military department, some say that Zheng Jie may become a privy envoy, and some people say that Zheng Jie will probably become a privy deputy envoy. After all this irresponsible nonsense, everyone still had to think about what would happen. So everyone finally remembered that the final decision was made by the Zhao official family.

"Why didn't the Zhao family come out to speak?" The question has finally entered a more serious stage.

With a serious question, it is easy to have a serious answer, "The Zhao official family is formulating the matter of restoring the Tongji Canal and opening up the Shandong Canal." ”

Zhao Jiaren had a meeting with the senior executives of the Ministry of Engineering and the Survey Department of the Ministry of War, who were in charge of surveying and excavation, and it was normal for them to appear at the meeting. The presence of senior officials from the Ministry of Agriculture was somewhat surprising.

Zhao Guanjia's expression was serious, and his tone was also very serious, "For the use of water sources, you must come up with a complete system. Canals need water, and so does agriculture. Agriculture needs capacity, and canals provide capacity. So what I want to see is a system that complements each other rather than goes to-to-toe. ”

The participants in the meeting, even if they were from Jinshi, all had a wealth of practical work experience, and with the previous intensive training, they all understood what ideas were contained in this fluttering speech. The canal is evaporating all the time, and there is a certain amount of leakage into the ground. The canal needs to be constantly replenished with water.

If you replenish water with a high sediment content, such as the Yellow River, and then raise the canal bed after sediment precipitation, dredging every year is a terrible job, but desilting is tantamount to abandoning the canal. The name of the Tongji Canal on the drawings is the same as the name of the Tongji Canal more than a hundred years ago, but the route is very different. It is a canal that has been re-excavated.

If you want to reduce dredging, you need a water source with high water quality, and it has to be a water source with a high flow rate. This, in turn, requires the protection of the water quality of the river. In the more extensive plan at this stage, all rivers have to be soil and water conservation areas for one kilometer on both sides. A large number of trees need to be planted.

With such a soil and water conservation zone, it is also necessary to consider the question of how the people on both sides of the rivers use water. Wells can be considered for domestic water, but not for agricultural water. In addition, the irrigation canals for agricultural water also need high-quality water sources, and if the water source with a high sediment content comes, the canals that have been dug up so hard will be scrapped at one time.

The group of people who participated in the meeting all had solemn faces, and the few guys who were born in Jinshi had herds of alpacas rushing to Zhao Guan's house who was presiding over the meeting. It would be nice if the Zhao official family was like the official family of the previous dynasties, everyone sat together and talked nonsense. Anyway, the officials don't understand these key points of execution at all, and they can't come up with a way, so they can only let the officials be demons. In the end, Zhao Guan's family allocated the money, and everyone did what they wanted.

When the Zhao Guanjia understood the concept better than the Jinshi, and knew the key and know-how of implementation, the Jinshi felt that the Zhao Guanjia had broken the rules. Even if the official family understands, at least they have to pretend to be stupid! The emperor who is high above is shrewd and capable, and he knows how to implement it concretely, and the officials below him still want to live. It takes a lot of courage to tell a lie that will be exposed to your boss.

Officials who are cadres do not have the feeling of being a jinshi, and these people can keep up with the Zhao Guanjia's train of thought, and they also have rich practical experience. What's more, they are still the guys educated by the Zhao Guanjia according to the process of science and engineering men, and as soon as they heard that they could build a project that was 'enough for the law of eternity', these people couldn't help but get excited. Unlike the Jinshi, if Zhao Jiaren and Zhao Guanjia were literati who only knew how to be foolish, the science and engineering men would be greatly disappointed.

Major Wen Yong, who was in charge of the survey, pointed to a section on the map and said to Zhao Jiaren: "Official, this is a mountain range. Can our current gunpowder explode? ”

"Whether it can explode or not, I won't know until I try it. But what I want to ask is that you don't blast more rocks than you excavate. And in the mountains, we can still cross it with a sluice, and we don't have to blow up a big ditch. ”

As soon as the sluice gate was mentioned, the concepts of "buoyancy", "water level" and "waterline" popped up directly in their minds. Depending on the profession, their associative abilities allow the men to sketch the underwater part of the ship in their brains, or to design a sturdy lock when it bears a large amount of water, or to various mathematical formulas or models.

Thinking of the hassle that can be saved by using the sluice gates, most of the polytechnic men are overjoyed. The one who proposed to blow up the mountain range looked even more overjoyed.

The Jinshi men first took the word sluice out of their memory bank, recalled the corresponding text of the sluice, and then they were disappointed to find that they didn't know anything about it. Therefore, the Jinshi men either maintain the calmness of 'Mount Tai collapses in front and the color remains unchanged, and the elk is on the left and the eyes are not instantaneous'. Or show an expression of insensitivity to this kind of 'strange tricks'.

After that, many questions were raised, and Zhao Jiaren answered them one by one. When the whole conversation was almost over, Zhao Jiaren made a summary, "During the Yellow River Campaign, we used the Yellow River to reach Kaifeng, and when the Yellow River returned to the north, we could only go to Kaifeng by land." Everyone knows the difficulty of transshipment by land, and it is imperative to open a canal. Of course, I hope to be able to take the enemy lightly. But we can't predict these things, so the work of the canal cannot be relaxed. In the event of a stalemate, the canal can be of great use. When the war is over, we will recover Hebei. Immigrants to Henan and Hebei also needed canals. It's hard work, and I promise you that when the canal is opened, your names will be engraved on the estuary stele so that future generations from now will know who started it. ”

Thinking of the great significance of completing such hard work, the polytechnic man was emotional and applauded Zhao Guanjia's speech. Thinking of being able to go down in history, the Jinshi men also slapped excitedly. As a result, the meeting on the excavation of the Tongji Canal ended in a warm atmosphere.

The meeting on the excavation of the Tongji Canal was concluded, and the meeting on the opening of the Yanhang Canal was held. The Yanhang Canal is the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal opened up in the Yuan Dynasty, and the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal is not the same thing as the Grand Canal dug by Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty. The Tongji Canal reopened by Zhao Jiaren is part of the Grand Canal of Emperor Yang of Sui. The Grand Canal of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty was not directly dug out of such a long canal, but communicated with many canals that had been opened up in the Han Dynasty.

As for the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal in the Yuan Dynasty, the Tongji Canal was not restored, but continued northward from the Yangtze River to the northern end of the Yellow River, which encroached on the Huai River, and opened up a canal directly to Dadu.

Now the Yellow River has returned to the north, the Huai River has regained its own river channel, and the Yanhang Canal is built from the north end of the canal connecting the Yangtze River and the Huai River to the north, all the way to the Yellow River.

After the special meeting on the two canals, the branch of the Academy of the Ministry of War brought up a list of the three candidates for the new chief of staff. Everyone elected these three people, and now it is the turn of Zhao Guan's family to select one person from among them.

"I think it's up to everyone to form a selection committee. Let them prepare for themselves why they can be the chief of the General Staff. Zhao Jiaren said.

The representatives of the branch of the academy of the Ministry of War looked at Zhao Jiaren dumbfounded, and the expressions of two of them seemed to wonder if they were having auditory hallucinations. The convening of a selection committee is a rare occurrence, and it is completely unconventional to ask the selected individuals to tell themselves why they can become chief of the General Staff.

Zhao Jiaren didn't care about the expressions of these people, he said frankly: "The key points of selection include age, experience, one's own understanding of the army, and what kind of general staff they want to build. That's all we have to think about. ”

Some of the delegates took up a pen and wrote down the points they were going to evaluate the selected candidates. Then they heard Zhao Jiaren continue: "These should also be told to the selected people, and they should be announced." ”

Hearing these completely confusing words, the deputy chief of general staff, who was the representative of the society, asked in a trembling voice: "Official! Why is that? ”

"Many people think that if Li Yun or Zheng Jie wins the battle, they will be rewarded with the post of chief of the general staff. I don't think it's appropriate. According to the system, the post of Chief of the General Staff is not a reward, but a position to run the army. Therefore, those who want to become the chief of the General Staff must have their own views and ideas about the General Staff. The Chief of the General Staff has the obligation to continue to advance with the General Staff. And it is necessary to let everyone know through preaching, so that everyone can have a public opinion. ”

After Zhao Guanjia finished speaking, no one squeaked. End of meeting.

Leaving Zhao Guan's house, the guys from the military department looked at each other, but no one was willing to speak first. The biggest thought in their hearts was who told the Zhao family about the dispute in the General Staff. If no one told the Zhao Guanjia, how could the Zhao Guanjia come up with such a highly targeted selection method.

Li Yun dared to make a plan to attack Shaanxi, because he had a vote of his subordinates to work with him to formulate this plan, and there was also a vote of people who could follow him to carry it out. He is not alone in being on the list for the next Chief of the General Staff, but with all the different gangs and supporters behind them.

The new selection method makes these people behind them feel as if they have caught something, and as if they have lost something. In short, they feel particularly uneasy between gains and losses.