"That's right, 50 million, if it's not enough, you can add it."

Zhao Mengqi looked determined, opened his five fingers, stretched out in front of Wu Qian, and shook it.

Wu Qian was shaken a little dizzy, "What's more? Your Highness, the old minister is talking to you about business, how can you be so joking!?"

You can't blame the old man for being angry, you must know that the finances of the imperial court have been declining in recent years, and the annual income is only about 100 million yuan, and it is only on the books, in fact, what can really be received is two or three percent less, but the expenses are increasing day by day.

In the case of making ends meet, it is impossible to make a surplus, and in the words of later generations, it is "deficit finance", not to mention 50 million yuan, even 500,000 yuan is difficult to squeeze out.

If it weren't for the fact that King Yan had a huge "windfall", Wu Qian would not have dared to have the idea of this big project.

When he opened his mouth to quote a project budget of eight or nine million, he already had the intention of asking for a sky-high price, but in fact, he was satisfied with three or five million yuan.

But now King Yan opened his mouth and threw out 50 million guan, isn't this deliberately making fun of him?

That is, Zhao Mengqi's previous performance was not bad, and he had a good impression, otherwise the old man would have pulled Zhao Mengqi's sleeve at this time and sprayed him with saliva first.

Zhao Mengqi was tepid, took a sip of tea, and said slowly, "I'm talking about the right thing, why am I joking?"

"Heh, the old minister wants to hear how the old minister is so small, and how does His Highness come up with this money?"

Wu Qianhu glared at Zhao Mengqi with a pair of eyes, waiting for him to explain.

Zhao Mengqi sat up straight, "Speaking of which, in addition to the impact of the enclosure of the Taihu Lake outlet, the most fundamental reason is actually soil erosion in the upper reaches and a large amount of sediment entering the Taihu Lake, right?"

"Exactly." Wu Qian's face was stiff and he nodded.

"In this case, just treating the downstream effluent is only a palliative rather than a cure, and it will definitely need to be dredged frequently in the future to maintain."

"Your Highness, of course the old minister understands this truth, and he also has a vision for the governance of the upstream, but there are priorities, and when money and food are limited, he can only take care of the downstream first."

"Oh? Money and food aside, can you first talk about what to do upstream?"

Wu Qian saw that King Yan had a serious face and did not mean to be perfunctory, so he slowly calmed down and spoke carefully.

"Lao Chen thinks so, there are two main inlets of Taihu Lake, one is the 74th of Tiaoxi in the southwest, and the other is the 100th of Jingxi in the northwest."

"Therefore, in the upper reaches of the Daxi River, Daibu River, and Cuxi River, Dapu should be built to store the tide and retain water, and dams should be built in the Nanhe, Nanxi, and Xuxi rivers to collect the Meizhu River and Daxi River along the line, so as to regulate the amount of water entering Taihu Lake."

"In addition, there are six natural lakes in Taohu, Zhuhu, Dangyang, Gucheng, Shijiu, and Nanzhu, which can be used for storage, and the embankment should be raised to increase the water storage capacity."

"There are Hexi River, Xili River, Cao River, etc. between Taozhu Lake and the canal, Mengjin River, Wuyi River, Danjin River, Licao River, Zhaocun River between the canal and Nanhe River and Nanxi River, as well as the rivers used for flood diversion, diversion and navigation in the north-south direction between the canal and the Nanxi River, all need to be repaired and maintained......

When Wu Qian was telling, Zhao Mengqi had already found a map and marked it while listening.

Half an hour passed, and the upstream area was drawn by him with dense lines and circles, and he didn't need to calculate carefully, and he knew that this was a huge project.

"This is the initial idea established by the old minister in combination with the ideas of Jia Kang, Shan Ge, Jia Qiao, Zhao Lin and others, and it is not perfect, if it is really to be implemented, it is necessary to convene water conservancy personnel to check and fill in the gaps and formulate a detailed plan."

"If there are really 50 million, no, as long as 20 million, Lao Chen is confident that he will complete the main project within five years, but unfortunately, ......."

It's a pity that you, the king of Yan, are bragging!

Wu Qian glanced at Zhao Mengqi, his heart full of regret.

After Zhao Mengqi noticed it, he pretended not to understand Wu Qian's words, touched his chin and asked, "The reason why Wu Gong said that it would take five years should be that except for the use of disaster victims in the first place with work for relief, the rest of the time is to hire husbands and servants during the slack time."

"Indeed, it is difficult

Does His Highness think there is anything wrong? After all, farming is fundamental, and we dare not delay."

"However, except in times of famine, the cost of hiring local servants is not small, how much are you going to pay?"

"This ......" Wu Qian was stunned, realizing that he had neglected the employment problem.

At this time, in Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, Zhancheng rice has been widely planted, and it can be harvested twice in two seasons, or even three cropping, and the average yield per mu in the Taihu Lake basin has reached three stones, and the vast majority of farmers have sideline industries such as silkworm weaving and short-term temporary work in addition to farming.

In other words, the individual productivity of the people in these places was much higher than in other parts of the Great Song Dynasty, which meant that the price of labor was higher.

At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, Song Taizu stipulated that the servants and farmers must be given two liters of rice a day, which was set as the standard for the whole world, and even the people who participated in the transfer of military funds at the border were also two liters of rice, plus a certain amount of salt and vegetable money.

However, when Fan Zhongyan was in Suzhou, he served as a farmer because of the construction of water conservancy, but he had to give three liters of rice.

Note that this is conscription, not employment, and the construction of water conservancy is high-intensity labor, and if you hire workers according to market wages, it will be difficult to recruit people for less than 300 yuan.

Wu Qian originally thought that if he gave 100 wen a day, he could buy about a bucket of rice, which was enough for a family of six, but it was no problem when he was working for relief, and it would not work in normal times.

For such a large project, at least 100,000 laborers have to be used, and the salary alone is 10 million yuan a year, and the 20 million yuan he envisioned is enough for two years, even if the construction period is tightened, it will definitely not be enough.

Immediately, Zhao Mengqi spoke, "My idea is to combine the renovation of water conservancy with the rectification of the Xiang Army!"

"Xiang Jun? This project will definitely require the use of a part of the van army, but how can we put it in order?"

"Gong Wu, you should know that the Xiang army system has done more harm than good to my Great Song Dynasty, and I want to use this big project to transfer the Xiang army from the two Zhejiang and Liangjiang provinces, which is not only to make effective use of labor, but also to reorganize the Xiang army in the process of construction, divert personnel, and achieve the goal of disarmament."

When Wu Qian heard this, he caught a little bit of something, "How to divert it?"

"You said before that there will be at least 20,000 hectares of fertile land after the completion of the downstream water conservancy alone, so if the construction is done in an all-round way, wouldn't there be at least 50,000 hectares, and according to the standard of 40 acres for a farmer, 120,000 households can be settled, of course, not everyone is willing to farm, so I also plan to set up an engineering unit dedicated to construction, a transportation group, and various workshops, as well as to innovate the county and township level administration, and can accommodate a large number of people."

Zhao Mengqi said vaguely, but Wu Qian thought about it, it seemed quite feasible, but he still had questions, "In this way, the new fields opened are used to house the Xiang army, how to raise the money and food!?"