(Inscription: The Great Flood is described in the ancient myths and legends of almost every civilization.) Of course, this can be done from the perspective of climate or hydrological history. But from a mythological point of view, what does the "Great Flood" mean? It symbolizes both the punishment of man and the struggle between man and God. From a deeper meaning, it also vaguely reveals the self-censoring consciousness of human beings from the age of ignorance to the age of civilization. This kind of self-examination is complex and contains no less depth of thought than the thinking of contemporary people thousands of years later. It includes many elements such as reflection on one's own behavior, the ultimate goal of civilization, the relationship between man and nature, and the universe. So there is also a story about the flood in this "iQue". ）

I finally figured out the second meaning of God's words. This is the opening chapter of the Bible's book of Genesis, which deals with God's creation of the world in seven days. It means that all things in heaven and earth came into being out of nothing. I experienced this feeling in the elixir realm, so I knew it.

When I walked out of the house the next morning, the surrounding mountains and fields were still the same scenery, but when I looked up, I felt different. Every brick, tile, grass and tree has become vivid. I saw a small grass on the side of the road, and suddenly my mind moved slightly, far away, but my mind seemed to be able to touch it. With a finger of the hand, the heart senses that the grass has no wind and is automatic.

I was feeling the emotion of this new realm, when suddenly I heard a thunderclap in my ears! I was taken aback. What's going on? Is there something wrong with the exercises? The thunder in my ears is coming again? When I looked up, I was relieved. It turned out that it wasn't my delusion, God really thundered!

I don't know when the clouds rolled up in the sky, the first thunder started, the lightning flashed, the thunder rolled continuously, and the raindrops the size of soybeans fell all over the sky. It's raining! The downpour has been pouring for days.

......

When you first enter the realm of the elixir, it is said that you should do it every day and do not lose it. But I didn't do it, not because I didn't want to, but because God wouldn't let me!

Wearing a pair of shorts, barefoot, and a pair of liberation shoes, I stood topless on the Qingyi River embankment, facing the floodwater. This summer, Wucheng City was flooded again. This flood is said to have been the worst in a century, even after the devastating flood of 1931, 59 years ago. There are many floods in the south of the Yangtze River, one flood in three years, and one flood in five years, I have not seen a big flood since I was a child, but I have never seen such a big flood.

Wucheng is located in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the plain and the mountains and hills of the combination of abundant products, is the land of fish and rice since ancient times. But this topography also has its natural drawback, which is frequent flooding. Since ancient times, the residents of this area have fought against floods and formed a relatively special kind of farmland hydraulic facilities - Wei.

"圩" is a local word, pronounced "wai", in fact, the meaning is similar. It is a ring of dikes that enclose the contiguous fields of land and farms, shaped like a large irregular bath. When the flood comes, the polders keep the water out of the fields. The township at the foot of Zhaoting Mountain is called Liqiao Township, and most of the farmland and fish ponds in Liqiao Township are in Liqiao Wei.

The polders of Liqiaowei are actually very large horseshoe-shaped, because one end of it is surrounded by the mountain of Zhaoting Mountain, and there is no need to build a ring wall like on the plain. On the other side, the polder is part of the Qingyi River embankment. There are also a number of irrigation and drainage stations on the polders, which can be used for irrigation and pumping water to prevent waterlogging. Liqiao Wei is not a large polder in Wucheng, but it is not a small polder, with a total of 70,000 acres of farmland, 40,000 acres of ponds, and more than 100,000 people living in the polder area.

Why am I on the levee? Because I'm also part of the flood control army. Our Shizhu Village is in the mountainous area, and if it is not in the polder area, the water will not flood our village. However, the township ordered all the middle-aged male laborers in the township to go up to the embankment for flood control. In addition to the order, this is actually a township contract, think about it, if the people of Shizhu Village do not go up to the embankment during the flood control, and wait until the next year, when the drought is fighting, why will the above allocate materials for you?

The township covenant is the unwritten law in the countryside, for example, there is also a rule that women are not allowed to go up the embankment during flood control. This has been studied by several university professors, supposedly because women were seen as the protection of private property in the past, or because of a superstitious idea. In fact, you will know the reason when you go up to the embankment, this place is really not suitable for women. I at least wore a pair of pants, and some of the villagers were simply naked**, and their buttocks were naked, and the clothes were immediately wet with muddy water when they were worn anyway, which was very uncomfortable.

Another reason why women are not suitable for going up the embankment is that they can't stay here, and when the flood comes, snakes and rats can be seen everywhere on the embankment, and they let the water drive out of the hole. Snakes and rats are natural enemies, but in the face of natural disasters, they are safe and sound, and there is no disturbance with people. At this time, many people had fallen asleep in the grass huts on the other side of the embankment, taking advantage of the time to rest when the wind and waves receded.

It was July 11, 199o, the fifteenth day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, and it was early in the morning. I had a sledgehammer in my hand and I hadn't closed my eyes for two days and two nights. Fortunately, my energy and physical strength are far beyond ordinary people, otherwise I really can't stand it.

You ask me what I do with a sledgehammer to fight floods? Guarding the embankment is afraid of wind and waves, two is afraid of rapids, and three is afraid of high water level static pressure. A single blow of wind and waves can sweep away a large area of earth and rock on the embankment, and it is likely to break through a gap, while the torrent is too good at scraping away the embankment little by little, and the embankment is thinned layer by layer. Therefore, when guarding the embankment, a row of wooden piles is often driven in the water in front of the weak embankment, and artemisia bark and reed mats are tied to the stakes to slow down the impact of wind and waves on the embankment.

Commonly used materials for flood control include wooden stakes, bamboo, artemisia mats, iron wire, sacks, etc. The township usually has a stockpile of these supplies, but this year it seems that there are not enough because the water is too much. The Qingyi River embankment is in constant danger everywhere. I looked at the flood in front of me, and I was also stunned in my heart, according to this situation, if the flood did not recede in the past two days, these villagers in Liqiao Township alone would not be able to hold the polder embankment no matter what. Although I know the Tao and have supernatural powers, I feel that I am small and useless in the face of this flood.

Just as I was sighing, I heard a car horn sound in my ears and looked back. A long line of cars came in the distance, and a long green queue followed behind the car. It turned out that the soldiers of the garrison troops rushed to fight the flood with flood control materials. Many roads in Wucheng were blocked, and this group of soldiers went around from the urban area of Wucheng City to Zhaoting Mountain, and then crossed the polder area to the riverside.

The leader of the team was a colonel in his forties, and he commanded the team to go up the embankment with the head of Liqiao Township and a bureau chief from the city. Most of these soldiers are eighteen or nineteen-year-old recruits, and their faces are childish, but they have the courage and fortitude unique to soldiers. After they went up the embankment, they were organized and disciplined, and they cooperated well with each other, but they did not undergo special flood control training and needed the assistance of villagers. And I became a small commander, commanding a squad of soldiers, how to drive wooden stakes, and how to drive piles on the slopes in the water also required skill.

As soon as the army reached the embankment, the pressure on the embankment was immediately relieved a lot, and I was much more relaxed. However, at this moment, there was the sound of rolling thunder in the distance, and the raindrops, which had been getting smaller, suddenly became larger and poured down densely. The wind was blowing, the wind was very strong, and the raindrops were smashing on people, and the splashes looked like white dots from a distance. The most terrible thing is to see that the wind direction is actually facing the embankment where I am located, and the waves are rolling up and hitting in this direction.

With a bang, the wave tore the mat open and swept away a few wooden stakes. One of the little warriors slipped and didn't get into the water, but fortunately his comrades grabbed his belt with quick hands and didn't get swept away. As the saying goes, "three feet of water pours a healthy cow", and this wave has become bigger, and people can't stand in the water. I hurriedly beckoned the surrounding warriors to retreat to the embankment. In just a while, the little soldier who fell into the water was already choking on water, and it seemed that he was impassable. Everyone hurriedly put him on the ground to control the water and give first aid. After a few controls in his abdomen and chest, he spit out a mouthful of muddy water and coughed a few times, and finally he was fine.

The little warrior had just escaped, and I suddenly felt the embankment under my feet soften, and it seemed to squirm slightly. This place is going to collapse! I didn't care about the many, grabbed the little warrior and beckoned the others to run to the side. Not long after leaving this place, the place where he had just landed suddenly sank, and a hollow half the size of a room appeared, and the river immediately rolled into it. It's so dangerous! How can I just stand on a termite nest!

As the ancient folk saying goes, "A thousand miles of embankment is destroyed in an anthill", this is not a joke. You can't plant trees on the embankment, either on the inside or on the outside? Trees on the outside will block the flooding, but why can't you plant on the inside? Because it will attract termites, and there are termites in Wucheng. However, decades ago, when the state called for a third-line construction and afforestation, a leader sent down by the city once called for trees to be planted on the outer slope of the embankment, saying that from a scientific point of view, the root system of trees can keep the water and soil strong, and that in the past, it was superstitious to say that trees were not allowed to be planted on the embankment.

Unfortunately, this practice has not been scientifically demonstrated, and it has actually been proved wrong. Because trees can't live forever, the root rot of a dead tree can leave complex pores in the embankment. Termites prefer to make nests in such pores. Moreover, termites like to eat wood and like to move under the root system of trees. They also secrete a special acid that can corrode wood and harden the surrounding soil into a shell that resembles cement. Some termite nests are large and form a house-sized cavity, but they are sturdy, and the walls of the cavity are all soils that react with acid, like a cement shell.

There are termite holes on the embankment, which are usually not felt, and even people and cars walking on it will not have any effect. However, in one case, it is different, that is, after being immersed in water for a long time, the walls of the termite cave will gradually soften, and finally it may collapse suddenly. These problems were later exposed more, and it occurred to people that the trees on the embankment could not be kept, but they could not be cut down, and they needed to be uprooted and then filled in the tree pits. But a long time has passed, and there are ant colonies on the ground.

Now there is high technology, as far as I know, it can be detected by sound waves, electromagnetic and other means. But in practice, there are two most effective ways to check termite nests in the countryside: one is to use dogs to sniff them, find places where there may be termite nests, and the dog's nose is more sensitive than sound waves. Another thing that is not too embarrassed to say is the guy who robbed tombs in modern times - Luoyang shovel. The embankment of Liqiaowei was inspected, but I didn't expect that there were still fish that slipped through the net, and at this critical juncture, a collapsed anthill suddenly appeared.

The river was swept into the anthill by the wind and waves, and soon took away a larger piece of earth and rock, and the embankment was cut in half, and the embankment was immediately unable to bear it, and the intact other half suddenly collapsed, and was washed away by a gap several meters wide. The river water poured into the gap, forming a torrent rushing towards the polder.

There was a sound of gongs, which was a sign that there was a local embankment. The first to react was that the PLA soldiers rushed in a queue from both sides of the gap, each resisting a straw bag or sack, filling the sack into the gap, and immediately gave way to run back, and the people behind followed. In an instant, countless sacks were filling the gaps. This kind of organization is much more efficient than that of the villagers, and I stand aside, but I can't intervene, so I can only retreat far away, so as not to get in the way. The colonel, the highest commander of this group of soldiers, and the two local leaders on the embankment also rushed to the edge of the gap to direct the rescue.

The gap is not big, only a few meters wide, and because of this, the water flow is very rapid, and the sacks are washed away and cannot be stopped! The soldiers of the People's Liberation Army are racing against the current, but the breach on the embankment is getting bigger and bigger, and there is a danger of bursting the embankment! The colonel was anxious and shouted: "Prepare to line up the human wall!"

"The chief can't drain people now, the wall water is too urgent, and people can't stand at all!" The township chief standing beside the colonel hurriedly stopped. People often see footage of people blocking water in TV promos for flood fighting, but in reality it is quite dangerous or even impossible to do so. The township chief shouted again: "The chief quickly ordered them to put a few telephone poles over!"

It is still the efficiency of the soldiers, and the efficiency is very fast, and the telephone poles on several communication lines let the soldiers put down and carry them over, as for the lines, wait for the flood to pass, and then rush to repair them. Several telephone poles were crossed across the gap, and when the sack was thrown, many of them were blocked by the poles. However, this did not completely prevent the gap from widening, as the dirt on both sides was constantly being carried away, and the width of the gap was about to pass the length of the pole.

The colonel frowned and asked the township chief: "Is there any other way to plug the gap?"

The township chief pointed to the distance and gritted his teeth and said, "Shipwreck!"