Li Hui's mother and son were sent home after having lunch in the south house. Along the way, Mrs. Gu was frightened and looked at her son from time to time, but hesitated to speak.
In her hand, she held the money returned by Mr. Han, which seemed to be hot even in her arms. Han Yong's action of returning the copper coins was a sign of bad things in Gu's opinion.
After entering the home, Mrs. Gu couldn't wait to pull her son into the house. After closing the door, she said in a trembling voice: "Hui'er, what's wrong with you? Didn't mother tell you that she told you not to talk? How can you still show off?
Get up? What should we do? You have got into a big trouble, do you know that?"
Li Hui smiled and said, "Don't worry, Mom, I know what I'm doing, and I'm not trying to show off."
Mrs. Gu shouted in a low voice: "You are not trying to show off. Do you have any way to divert water into the fields? Tantai Lake has dried up to the center of the lake. How can you divert water into the fields in one day? Even gods can't do it. Don't say anymore, the matter is over.
There is only one way. Chou Gu, quickly pack some clothes for Hui'er, take out all the money at home, and make a package for Hui'er to take. Hui'er, you should leave now and go to Danyang County. Your father still has some money.
My relatives are in Danyang County and they should take you in. Mother will take care of things here. I care about my family anyway, they can't do anything to me."
Chou Gu's face turned pale with fright, and she didn't know what exactly happened. After hearing what Gu said was urgent, she agreed repeatedly and went to pack her things.
Li Hui hurriedly pulled Gu to sit down and said, "Don't worry, mother, my son is not fooling around. He can do it, so just relax. Besides, even if his son gets into trouble, he can't just walk away on his own."
, how can I feel at ease when my mother and ugly aunt are left here to be punished? Isn’t this setting my son up for being unfilial? How can I stand up in the future? Believe me, I will do it."
Mrs. Gu stared at her son blankly, and sighed for a while: "That's it, the matter is over, the worst we can do is die together. If anything happens to my son, I will hit him to death before looking at the door of the house."
Chou Gu was listening and said: "I was killed too. Our whole family died together."
…
It was late afternoon, and the weather was so hot that it made people breathless. At this moment, Li Hui went out carrying a wet cloth.
Li Hui wanted to go to the Gujia East Lake Manor in the east of the city to see the situation, especially to verify his memory about the water level of Tantai Lake and the distribution of the farmland in order to make his own water diversion plan.
In my memory, I have been to Tantai Lake and Donghu Manor, but my impression is vague. I need to confirm the terrain before implementing the method of diverting water that I want. Otherwise, I still feel uneasy.
In front of Gu Qian, although Li Hui vowed categorically, this was actually a kind of gamble. Although Li Hui believed that he could do it with his knowledge, who knew if there would be any mistakes. It would be better to do field inspections and be aware of it.
Take it calmly.
Not long after he left his back alley, Li Hui felt someone following him quietly. There were two men in civilian clothes who had been hiding under the shade of a tree at the entrance of the alley. After he came out, the two men got up and followed him.
Li Hui immediately understood that the Gu family would send someone to keep an eye on him at that time. Gu Qian and others did not believe that they could do it from the bottom of their hearts, but they wanted to be a doctor and let him give it a try. But
He didn't want to be teased, so he sent someone to keep an eye on him to prevent him from running away.
Li Hui understood their psychology. The young man possessed by him in time travel was originally a man with no achievements, silent and humble as a grain of dust. In their impression, they naturally did not believe that he could do this. But the drought was serious, and the Gu family
Gu Qian was obviously under great pressure after promising a large amount of military ration support.
Wujun is a place with abundant rainfall and numerous lakes. It is impossible for a drought to occur. That is why they were helpless after the drought lasted for several months. They may have thought that the drought was only temporary and it would rain soon. The result was:
After procrastinating again and again, until the lake dried up and water could no longer be diverted for irrigation, we realized the seriousness of the problem.
"You two, you came at the right time." Li Hui turned to look after the two servants of the Gu family who were following him.
The two servants were caught off guard and were stunned for a moment.
"I want to go to Tantai Lake and Gu's Dongcheng Manor to have a look. The journey is a bit far. Can you go back and report it and ask the owner to arrange a mule cart for me? Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll have to pay for it all the time.
It’s dark.” Li Hui smiled and said to the two of them.
The two Gu family servants looked at each other and discussed a few words in a low voice. One turned around and walked away quickly. The other stood still. Li Hui simply walked over and stood with him under the shade of a tree. The two stood awkwardly.
After a while, I saw a green mule cart running from the street corner, with the leaving servant sitting on the shaft of the cart.
Li Hui smiled and said: "This is great, you don't have to suffer under the sun."
The mule cart came closer, but there was a man sitting in the cart. Li Hui recognized that man, it was Mr. Han, the steward of Nanzhai.
"Why are you here, Mr. Han? You're polite." Li Hui cupped his fists and said.
"If you want to go to Dongcheng Manor, I will naturally accompany you. Otherwise, who will allow you to wander around the manor?" Han Yong frowned.
Li Hui smiled and said: "How dare you work with Mr. Han to accompany you? I really don't dare to do it."
Han Yong sneered: "Why don't you get in the car? Why are you being pretentious? I hope you really have the ability to fulfill your promise, otherwise, this may be the last time you take a car."
Li Hui didn't want to argue and stepped onto the bus.
The mule cart clattered forward, heading straight for the east city gate.
Wu County was once the capital city of Sun Wu during the Three Kingdoms period. The city wall was tall and solid, the city gate tower was tall and majestic, and there were turrets stretching on both sides, making it very grand. Although this city is called Wu County, it is by no means comparable to an ordinary county town.
Li Hui sat in the car and looked at the scenery of the city and city buildings outside, feeling an unreal feeling once again arise in his heart.
The green mule cart left the city and drove onto the Loess Avenue. Through the flying dust, Li Hui also saw the severity of the drought in the large fields on both sides. It was mid-May, the peak summer season in the south. In normal years, everything is flourishing at this moment.
In this season, the mountains and fields should be a vibrant scene. But at this moment, the fields and fields on both sides of the road are a different scene.
The trees and weeds on both sides of the road turned gray and yellow as if they had been burned by fire, and their leaves shriveled and drooped, lifeless. The paddy fields in the fields turned into dry fields, and the grass seedlings that should have grown vigorously were mottled green and yellow.
Film after film withered, and the scenes were shocking.
The severe drought in Wu County for several months is unique. As an important grain-producing area in the south and a prosperous rice land, this will bring serious consequences to local people and even wealthy families.
"It's really serious." Looking at this scene, Li Hui murmured to himself.
Han Yong, who was dozing next to him, squinted his eyes and frowned: "Should you close the car windows? It's full of dust, falling on my head and face."
At the end of the day, the mule cart came to a stop among a manor and a village. It was fifteen or six miles away from Wu County and was where the Gu family's East Lake Manor was located. It was also the best farmland of the Gu family.
Most of the noble families of the Jin Dynasty owned huge amounts of manor and land. This was a symbol of their strength.
The area of land occupied by top wealthy families such as Gu Lu and Zhu Zhang in Wu County is even more staggering. The Gu family owns four manors around Wu County, with the farmland alone reaching tens of thousands of acres. The remaining Baitian mountains, forests, lakes, etc. are even more
It's inestimable.
This is not only the case with the Gu family, but also with other major families. Whether it is the wealthy families from the north who took refuge in the south after Yi Guan moved south a few decades ago, or the local aristocratic families in the south of the Yangtze River, they all have farmland stretching for more than ten miles or even dozens of miles.
The Gu family's East Lake Manor is a property owned by the Gu family's ancestors. It is a large manor with tens of thousands of acres of top-quality farmland within a radius of more than ten miles. It is an important source of the Gu family's wealth.
The most important criterion for measuring acres of land is the convenience of irrigation. The fields around the lake weir can be irrigated in a timely and convenient manner. This is obviously an important criterion for the quality of acres in Dajin where water conservancy facilities are underdeveloped.
The acres of Gujia East Lake Manor are located in the lake irrigation area around Tantai Lake in the east of the city.
Li Hui took a shortcut from the earthen path and ran quickly to the high lake dam. Han Yong was chasing behind him, sweating profusely. He couldn't bear the heat, so he had to let the servants follow closely, fearing that the boy would take the opportunity to escape.
Already.
As Li Hui ran, he paid attention to the fields on both sides. The Gu family took good care of the manor. They built waterways and ditches between the fields, extending in all directions. They must have been built to irrigate the fields. But now the fields are dry and the seedlings are half dead.
, the ditch was also dry and cracked.
But what Li Hui was actually most concerned about was the water level in Tantai Lake ahead. When he climbed up the high lake weir with sweat on his face, he looked into the lake and took a breath.
This Tantai Lake is a large lake with a radius of at least seven or eight miles. The lake shores are high and the dams are well built. It can be imagined that when this large lake is full of water, it will look like a vast smoke. If there is no severe drought, at this moment
There are weeping willows on the embankment, green grass, and thousands of acres of green farmland next to it. What a beautiful scene it is.
But now, half of the willow trees on the lake embankment have withered and died. Looking from the embankment into the lake, there is only a white water surface a few miles away. The rest is all dry river bottom and land.
They all stood up and cracked into pieces.
The drought is so severe that such a big lake is about to dry up.
Li Hui had no time to sigh and immediately started to conduct visual inspection. Standing on the embankment and looking at both sides, Li Hui confirmed his conjecture. Tantai Lake is a large lake with the bottom of the lake higher than the fields outside. This is quite different from Li Hui's previous guess.
Wrong. This is not a random guess. A large lake like Tantai Lake has been formed for a long time. It is unknown how many years of rainwater poured in. It must have been caused by sedimentation and the lake bottom rose.
With the productivity level of the Jin Dynasty and the dynasties before the Jin Dynasty, it is impossible to dig and dredge wild lakes like Tantai Lake. In order to ensure the water storage of the big lake and the safety of the surrounding fields, the local people have only one way, which is
Continuously building up the lake dike and cofferdam is much simpler than digging out the silt in the lake.
This is just like the Yellow River becoming an above-ground river. The Yellow River is also a wonder of an above-ground river formed by the uplift of the river due to sedimentation and the people on both sides of the bank strengthening the dams to prevent flooding.
Li Hui walked down the lake embankment and walked all the way to the remaining water surface in the center of the lake. As he walked, he paid attention to the inclination angle of the river bottom. From time to time he used dead wood to measure the angle and length, and from time to time he squatted down to make calculations. When Li Hui walked on the mud
When he reached the water surface in the middle of the lake, he got a set of data.
The distance between the water surface in the center of the lake and the shore is about two thousand steps, and the angle leading to the center of the lake is gentle, resulting in a small drop of about two meters. This calculation is not difficult for a later generation with a background in science.
The problem now is that the gap between the fields under the dam cofferdam and the lake bottom level needs to be measured, which is related to the success of my plan.
Li Hui quickly returned to the lake shore and called the Gu family servants to start measuring. The method was also very simple. Use a straw rope to drop the stone from a high place, measure the height inside and outside, and get the height difference to get the clue.