River engineering, as the name suggests, is a river defense project, but in the Qing Dynasty, it specifically referred to the projects and affairs of the Yellow River, the Huai River and the canal. However, the imperial dynasty in the north of Dingdu attached great importance to river work, which was related to the safety of Cao Yun and the supply of grain to the capital. Once the river work is eroded, the whole north will have to starve, but no dynasty has ever attached so much importance to river work as the Qing Dynasty: not only has a huge river engineering management organization, set up a river governor, and the annual investment in river engineering management funds is even more amazing - on the eve of the Opium War, the Qing court's recurrent financial expenditure, river work costs, pond labor expenses totaled 5.2628 million taels, accounting for 10.39% of the total expenditure, second only to military expenditure (accounting for 57.14%) and officials' expenditure (accounting for 15.58%).

It stands to reason that investing such a huge amount of manpower and material resources can at least ensure the safety of Caoyun, but in fact, the Yellow River and the Huai River have broken their embankments every year, and Caoyun is also intermittent, although it will not reach the point where the people of Beijing can not open the pot, but the tight supply of food in Beijing is an indisputable fact, Kangxi failed to do his best in the two expeditions to the west, and the supply of grain and grass is the biggest problem. Since the beginning of the 27th year of Kangxi, Jin Fu, the governor of the river, was overthrown by Guo Xiu, it has only been eight years now, but there have been nine governors of the river, one is not as good as the other, and the river workers have been extremely erosive, which is due to many reasons:

First of all, river engineering is a technical job, in order to become a qualified river engineering supervisor, not only need a wealth of theoretical knowledge, but also have long-term practical experience, this is not just a few pamphlets of the predecessors of the river management can be done, the existing river engineering officials in the Qing Dynasty are not qualified in quality at all - a group of scholars who spend their lives on the four books and five classics have time to study river engineering, basically some halfway monks.

Secondly, the setting of the institution is also extremely unreasonable: in order to reflect the importance of river engineering, the Qing Dynasty has set up the post of river governor to take charge of river engineering since the beginning of the Beijing Dynasty, which was originally a good intention, but there has been a somewhat strange situation - the Ministry of Engineering is in charge of the world's construction, water conservancy, it stands to reason that river engineering also belongs to the Ministry of Industry, but now the management of river engineering is independent, but the cost estimation and accounting are still managed by the Ministry of Industry, and the matter of the two is indispensable. In addition, the current river management system is a segmented responsibility system, and the officials in each section are uneven, and the repair capacity of the river embankment is also very different, and the quality of the river work can be much more problematic.

Third, the river engineering organization is huge, the people are superficial, there are few capable officials, and the corrupt officials are carrying a lot of money - although each river governor is a special candidate of the old man Kangxi, but the origin of the following officials is complicated, and each river governor will stuff some of his own people into the organization, plus the disciples of the dignitaries of the court, the disciples of the brothers, and the other are even more numerous. These sub-officials can't do river work, they get some money to deduct wages, and they are good at falsely reporting costs, and they are good at doing things like this, and expecting these people to do a good job in river work is similar to counting on the probability of pie falling from the sky.

Fourth, whether it is Jin Fu, a generation of water control officials, or his incompetent successors, the "water and sand attack" or the "multiple embankments" used in the management of the river are based on blocking, not based on dredging - where the embankment is broken, it will be blocked, not to mention that it has no effect, not to mention that the technology is backward at this time, even if the mechanized operation of later generations cannot completely prevent the occurrence of the embankment failure. But, then again, there is no way to block it - the priority of the transportation is there, how can the boat sail without water in the canal?

Speaking of Cao Yun, this is another extremely annoying thing: the Qing Dynasty implemented the official closing official luck, and the carrier was the more solid military Ding (Yun Ding) in the military registration of the Wei Institute. At the time of shipment, each ship was equipped with one transporter, one lieutenant, and nine to ten sailors were hired. The number of sailors in each province varies, and the total number is about 100,000. The highest governor of Caoyun is the governor of Caoyun, stationed in Huai'an. Under it is the grain road of each province, a total of seven people, in charge of the provincial grain reserves, under the jurisdiction of the military guards, the selection of the transport and accompanying officials, the instruction of the provincial council, the selection of the transport army, etc., sit on the water, supervise, verify the exchange of grain, face to hand over to the escort officer, and with the ship superintendent to Huai'an, submitted to the governor for inspection. The officials on Caoyun are all fat and shortage, and after a three-year term of office, there is also a hundred thousand or eighty thousand silver in his hand, which is relatively clean, if he is a little darker, conceal and embezzle, hundreds of thousands of taels of silver is not too much of a problem.

It is precisely because of the huge investment in river work and Cao Yun that corrupt officials are full of corrupt officials and corrupt officials, and the price of a stone of rice transported from the production area to the capital division has been more than three times that of the place of origin, which has greatly dragged down the financial situation of the Qing Dynasty; In addition, Kangxi's two personal expeditions to Geerdan cost a lot, and by the thirty-fifth year of Kangxi, there had been a huge deficit in the originally loose finances. For the ability and character of the gang of river workers and grain road masters, the old man Kangxi also knows in his heart, and he sent the fourth elder brother Yinzhen, who has always been known for his strictness, to try to rectify the river workers and the grain road, but he never thought that the fourth brother not only failed to rectify the rule of officials, but was put together by the officials of the child, and almost died in the flood, which made the old man inevitably a little stupid, but unfortunately there was really no one available at hand, and the war against Geldan involved him too much thought, had to put the matter of the river work aside for the time being, this time Yinzuo hit the old man's muzzle for "xing blessing", and the old man Kangxi took the opportunity to put the hot potato in Yinzuo's arms.

Hey, old man, count yourself ruthless! We don't understand river engineering, but when we participated in flood fighting and rescue in our previous life, we have not seen much information in this regard. As long as it can ensure the transportation of water, there is no need to plug the breach everywhere, not only do not block it, but also open a few more water conservancy facilities such as nullahs, and make good use of the water resources of the Yellow River and Huai, and maybe it can create a lot of fertile land. As for the water transport, it is also very simple, just change the inland water transport to sea transport and it will be over, we have not been in vain these years, and we have already prepared. But come up with a plan at this time, even if the old man believes it, I'm afraid that he won't be able to pass the pass of the minister of the DPRK and the central government, I can't say, let's get the river worker to go up and go around, what is this called? That's right, it's called practice makes true knowledge.

Well, we just took over this mission, and those brothers came to the door to give gifts in the name of congratulating us on moving to a new house or congratulating the engagement, and even the prince also sent someone to send some jade ruyi and other things, but the fourth child didn't move, I don't know what the fourth thought in his heart, no, let's go to the door to find out the bottom by ourselves. Yinzuo was sure to be careful, and went directly to Yinzhen's house......

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Let me ask you a question: What is the purpose of Yinzuo running to the old four mansions?