Edwin circled around the shallow pit, and Nicole was a little worried that the old scholar would faint if he went on like this, and was about to stop him when he said, "Victor, are you digging a cistern?"

"Ahh

Nicole was a little disappointed, cisterns are not a new thing in the human kingdom, especially in those areas where rivers and lakes are lacking, cisterns are quite common, such as the Neville Kingdom has built many cisterns in mountain fortresses, which usually store rainwater for people and animals to drink and water vegetable fields. In fact, Nicole is also leading people to dig a cistern, and there are only a few mountain streams in her territory, so if you use water normally, there is no problem. But tens of thousands of young men were to be stationed here, and it would be too much trouble if so many people had to run to the mountain stream to drink, so Nicole led thousands of people to build ten camps here, and in each camp had to build a cistern.

Victor pulls Nicole and Edwin out of their busy schedules and says that he wants to give her a gift that will turn her territory into a rich and prosperous land, and Nicole and Edwin rush over in high spirits, but they don't expect it to be a cistern. Although disappointed, thinking that this was Victor's heart, Nicole's heart was sweet.

"Victor, you're so nice!"

Edwin rolled his eyes as he looked at the sky. Judging by the size of the pool and the amount of water in it, it was obvious that it was dug before Nicole's inauguration, and Nicole couldn't see it at all, which was really lustful! Victor had many amazing ideas, but they were always planted in common sense, and Edwin had to explain the pros and cons of the cistern to him in detail.

"Victor, the area of arable land is related to the water source, but the rainwater stored in the reservoir can be used for growing vegetables, but if you grow wheat, it is useless to dig the pond no matter how big! The main function of the cistern is to collect rainwater, but the rainwater falls evenly on the ground. Therefore, small reservoirs are easy to fill, while large reservoirs cannot be filled, and water is more volatile. In addition, the rain is unstable, and the water in the reservoir is sometimes dry, so it is possible to water vegetable fields, but it is not enough to use wheat with a longer growth cycle. Tell me, what the hell do you think about going so far to dig a pool?"

Victor smiled: "Master, I really can't hide it from you, I really dug this pond to increase arable land." I only realized the importance of the lake after I got it back, so I wanted to dig a lake here by manpower, so that at least 20,000 acres of wheat fields could be added. Unfortunately, a heavy rain made my plan fail. ”

"It's not surprising that in the early days there were people who wanted to use water reservoirs to increase the area of arable land, and they all encountered the same dilemma, and no one has done it anymore. Edwin said.

Nicole also comforted: "Victor, the cistern you dug is still very useful, and if you trim it, you can add thousands of acres of vegetable fields." ”

Victor couldn't help but laugh and said, "I didn't go so far to dig a hole to grow vegetables!"

This is also where Edwin wonders, the waterhole is not in the hinterland of Randall's territory, but in the southeast corner of Nicole's territory, more than 70 kilometers away from Victor's brick kiln village. Whether it's taking soil to make bricks or digging lakes to create fields, Victor shouldn't have chosen this location.

"We chose this place for two reasons, one is the proximity to the water source, and the other is that the terrain is relatively high. Pointing to the south, Victor continued: "You see, this is only six kilometers away from the Jinshui River, which flows from west to east, indicating that the western part is higher than the eastern part. I plan to dig a huge reservoir here, and then build a ditch to the southwest to connect the Jinshui River with the reservoir, and with a stable water source, the reservoir will become a lake, enough to irrigate tens of thousands of acres of arable land. ”

No one in this world has ever proposed the concept of an artificial lake, and Edwin and Nicole are struck by Victor's majestic plan to turn the sea into a mulberry field. Nicole stared at Victor's delicate face, her sparkling eyes full of adoration and admiration, while Edwin fell into deep thought.

"Two questions. Edwin woke up from his contemplation and said, "First, no one has ever fought the idea of the Jinshui River except for the Borui Kingdom, and the fish-people are a problem that cannot be avoided. If you want to divert water from the Jinshui River, you must clear the banks of the fishmen, and the kingdom of Borui fought with the fishmen for 80 years to build Alexandria, and they are still fighting against the fishmen until now. Second, the water of the Jinshui River was large enough to flood the lake, and the water of the river spread eastward along the lake to the Heihe River, and a large area in the middle became a swamp, which would also be occupied by fishmen. This is tantamount to opening up territory for the fish-people. ”

Victor nodded and said, "Master, you have thought it through. None of this is a problem in my opinion, though. First of all, the riverbank fish-people have experienced ant plagues, and I have witnessed several battles between the fish-men and the ant colony, and at least more than 20,000 fish-men have been annihilated. The Chipman's riverbank fishmen were also devastated, and it is said that more than 20,000 fishmen were also devoured by the ant colony. In this area, the number of fish-people has plummeted, and there is no need to worry. ”

Ant-Man has achieved the results of eighty years of battle in the Kingdom of Borui in just one year, because both the fish-man and the ant colony are large groups of battles, and humans do not have the logistical ability to support large group operations, nor can they withstand the huge casualties of ordinary soldiers. Humans are based on knights as the core, trainee knights as the backbone, and elite soldiers as the auxiliary, striking at the enemy's living forces, and then relying on the castle to rest, by constantly cannibalizing the enemy, until victory.

The fish-man has a very poor memory, and no matter how much he loses, he will launch a counterattack as long as he gathers a sufficient number of them. Faced with this situation, the human army chose to avoid its edge and wait for the fish-people to disperse before coming out to kill. The fish-men died a lot in battle, and there were many lives, so the Borui Kingdom fought for eighty years to minimize the influence of the fish-men. Ant colonies, on the other hand, choose to be just frontal. As a result, the fish-man who does not have a long memory is sad.

After Edwin figured out what was going on, he couldn't help but sigh: "Ant-Man without individual consciousness is really a nightmare for all intelligent races!"

Victor smiled and continued, "Master, the second problem is also easy to solve. We can build a huge gate at the junction of the Jinshui River and the ditch. ”

"City gates?"

"Isn't there a gate made of fine iron at the gates of Blackcastle? We can use that kind of gate to regulate the amount of water, and when the lake level is lowered, we pull up the gate and let the water in, and when the lake is full, we lower the gate to block the river. I call these gates the gates of moderation. ”

"Wonderful! no! it's a genius idea!" Edwin muttered to himself, and said excitedly, "So what are you waiting for? Let's go to the riverbank!"

Victor, Nicole and Edwin came to the Jinshui River with a team of elite guards, and there were really three or two big fish and small fish on the river beach, and when those few fishmen with teeth and claws were shot by the guards, Edwin was less than 50 meters away from the Jinshui River.

Looking at the turbulent Jinshui River, Edwin said to Victor, "You just said that those two problems are not problems, so what is the real problem?"

"Time!" Victor stepped forward to join Edwin and said, "Fish-people reproduce and grow fast, and they will be a big problem in four years at most." We had to complete the project as soon as possible, and since the excavation of the pit would also be affected by the rain, we had to concentrate our manpower to dig the pit first. ”

Edwin was silent for a moment, then turned his head and said, "Victor, you didn't just design the ditch and the artificial lake to help Nicole, right? And this kind of ditch and reservoir design can be replicated over and over again, isn't it?"

Victor sighed in his heart, he didn't expect Edwin to see through his artificial river plan and disrupt his layout from only a half-clawed message, but at this point, he simply said frankly: "Master, you are right. With the help of the first artificial lake, I can continue to build ditches and artificial lakes, and eventually an artificial river will run through my territory, adding millions of acres of arable land to me. ”

"Millions!" exclaimed, Nicole covered her mouth.

Edwin's eyes burned and he said, "Far more than that! This artificial river can also run through the entire Renma Hill and increase tens of millions of acres of arable land!"

Nicole was slightly dizzy, her territory was 3,000 square kilometers in size, but with the help of mountain streams, she could reclaim a few thousand acres of arable land at most, and the land reclaimed by the York family and the vassal family was only 10 million acres. Victor said that she would increase hundreds of thousands of acres of arable land to her territory and turn it into a fertile land, which was really not a lie.

Nicole looked at Victor with affection, but Edwin said seriously: "Nicole! If you don't want Victor to be in danger, this matter must not be spread!"

Nicole was shocked and said categorically: "I will never say it!"

"Victor, let's go! There are many more details to be discussed!" Edwin pulled Victor and left.

In the following ten days, Edwin put aside his affairs and surveyed the terrain, streams, mountain streams, rivers, and lakes of Randall's territory with Victor, and the two ate and lived together, and after continuous discussion and research, the artificial river plan was perfected. Eventually, the old scholar returned to Castle Blacksburg with a large pile of scrolls.

At Rose Manor, Sylvia's chin propped up stared at the huge map on the wall.

"After my discussion with Victor, the artificial river plan was called an artificial irrigation system. It is mainly composed of temperance gates, ditches, reservoirs. The principle is to control the water in the gates, divert and discharge water in ditches, and store water in reservoirs. Let me start with the temperance gates.

The most important control gate is located on the banks of the Jinshui River, and on the surface it is no different from the iron gate of the city gate, which is also made of fine iron, pulled by winches and iron cables. However, for safety reasons, I designed a triple gate, the first gate is the main gate, the other two gates are spare, although the fine iron is corrosion-resistant, it still needs to be replaced after a long time. A fence was made of fine iron under the gate to prevent the fishmen from entering the ditch. In order to defend against the fishmen, a castle and two seven-meter-high walls were built around the gate to facilitate the entry and exit of soldiers. I have already drawn the specific design sketches.

In addition to this large control gate, many smaller control gates were to be built. Don't be nervous, these small control gates are very simple, you can use a stone slab, and they don't cost much. As for the location of the brakes, we will talk about it later. ”

Sylvia let out a long sigh of relief, and Edwin left his job at the entrance to the Everglades and ran back, coming up with such a shocking plan, if every temperance gate was done like this, it would really be impossible to sell the York family in a package.

Edwin continued: "Then there are the artificial ditches, which, according to Victor's design, connect the first reservoir and are 3 meters wide and 6 kilometers long, with one step down every 500 meters, an average depth of 1.5 meters, and an overall drop of 4 meters. To prevent silting, the ditch was built with green bricks. On both sides of the ditch, embankments are piled up 3 meters above the ground.

The ditch that spreads out from the first reservoir is relatively simple, 4 meters wide and 1.8 meters deep, and about 20 kilometers or so to build a small reservoir, with an overall drop of 12 meters and an embankment 1.5 meters above the ground. Victor means to use green bricks to pave the bottom, I think it is okay to use gravel, there are no large stone mines in the Centaur hills, and there is still a lot of gravel. ”

"Then there are the reservoirs, the first reservoir is 200 acres in size and 20 meters deep, and the rest of the reservoirs are 50 acres in size and 8 meters deep, and I calculated that it will take about 500 reservoirs. The ditch behind the last reservoir leads directly to the Black River. Then the whole artificial river is 1,100 kilometers long, runs through the Renma hills, flows from southwest to northeast, and finally joins the Heihe River. A triangular area will be formed between the Heihe River and the artificial river, and 70 million mu of cultivated land will be added. By the way, there will be a large number of fish and shrimp aquatic products in artificial rivers and reservoirs. ”

"70 million acres, 70 million acres。。。。。。 Dear Victor, you've got a problem for me!" Sylvia muttered to herself, caressing her white and immaculate forehead, and after a moment, she looked up and said, "Uncle Edwin, how dare you think about digging more than 1,000 kilometers of rivers and more than 500 lakes? How much manpower does it take? How much time does it take? How much material resources does it take? Do you think we can do it with the help of the Yorks? Gambis can do it with the strength of the whole country, right? Farmers need to farm, soldiers need to train, so there is time to dig rivers every day? As enticing as the prospect of an artificial irrigation system is, I can't agree with it either!"

Edwin shook his head and smiled, "Victor is brilliant, a true genius. After an in-depth conversation with him, I learned that his farming and animal husbandry system and artificial irrigation system are complementary to each other, and the agricultural and pastoral system can produce enough food to give farmers time to work on water conservancy projects, and water conservancy projects can increase the number of farms and villages, expand the actual control of the family over the territory, and solve the problem of monster invasion, so as to ensure the continuation of the agricultural and pastoral system. With that, Edwin walked over to the map and pointed to the mountains to the west.

"If the artificial ditch is built directly, the family will really not be able to bear it. Therefore, Victor suggested building a large reservoir first. You see, this is a mountainous area on the west side of the Centaur Hill, and there are many streams flowing from here, and they are mainly mountain springs, which are relatively small and quickly seep into the ground, and cannot irrigate the farmland. However, when it rains, the water in the mountains swells and flows down the stream, directly into the Black River from the low terrain.

Victor believes that these waterways not only give us a point to the elevation of the terrain, but also make natural ditches with a little repair. Large reservoirs are dug in the middle of these ditches from west to east, and when it rains, the mountain streams and rainwater fill the ponds into small reservoirs, and small control gates are built in the ditches behind the reservoirs to prevent flooding and alleviate drought. This design alone can increase 20 million acres of cultivated land, produce more food, accommodate more population, and then slowly build the main ditch in the north-south direction, and when the water conservancy project is completed, you will find that the whole people and horses are hilly, the ditches are dense, the waterways are vertical and horizontal, and the reclaimed fertile land is probably hundreds of millions of acres!"

Silvia's blue eyes rippled with brilliance, and Victor's thinking was very clear, first building a reservoir in a low-lying place, using mountains and streams to build small ditches and small control gates in the east-west direction, completing the transformation from a reservoir to a small reservoir, and then slowly digging the main ditch in the north-south direction, using the small reservoir as a hub to realize the intersection of many small ditches and the main ditch, and finally such a majestic water conservancy project was completed in piecemeal. What is the point of digging a cistern? The small control gate is nothing more than a stone slab a few meters wide, and it can be said that Victor's design minimizes the cost, but the benefits brought by Sylvia cannot refuse.

"Wonderful!" Sylvia took a deep breath and said, "Victor has thought what no one dared to think of, and our York family will do what no one dared to do!"

Edwin chuckled and said, "That's how it should be!"