The first thousand two hundred and sixty-three chapters burst
The leader of the Henan Flood Control and Flood Control Supervision Group is Du Shurong, the censor of Zuoqiandu, the third rank of the Inspectorate. Although his rank is not as good as that of the second-rank governor, he is a member of the Inspectorate and is born to supervise officials. What's more,
He is the leader of the supervision team, and he comes with an imperial edict. In the traditional sense, he is an imperial envoy with considerable authority.
Therefore, even Xiao Baoguan did not dare to show any slights to Du Shurong, the leader of the supervision team. As soon as the supervision team arrived, he informed him of the relevant disaster situation and asked for instructions on follow-up work.
However, Du Shurong did not interfere randomly based on his status as an imperial envoy. He was already very clear about his responsibilities before he came. He was here to supervise and did not interfere in specific affairs.
As long as Xiao Baoguan does not make any big mistakes and cause big problems, he will pretend that he does not exist. Otherwise, even though he is an imperial envoy and holds great power, if something goes wrong, his wealth and life will not be the same.
Hope it can be saved.
After all, Xiao Baoguan is a high-ranking official in the border area. If his luck is over, he will enter the cabinet and become a minister or even a minister. It is better not to offend him.
Du Shurong did not intervene, but other members of his supervision team quickly got into work mode and began to guide the local military and civilians in fighting the flood.
Xiao Baoguan was relieved to receive help from these experienced professionals.
The members of the supervision team, except for a few censors sent by the Supervisory Yuan to supervise, are all professionals, drawn from various departments by the cabinet. They all have rich experience in flood fighting and disaster relief, and have both practical experience and theoretical level.
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These professionals are much more reliable than ordinary local officials.
In just two days, perfect flood control measures were sorted out. During this period, the water level of the Yellow River was getting higher and higher, and a small gap still appeared. However, there happened to be a second-class river warship of the Navy nearby. After the danger, no matter how hard it was,
When the officials at the rear reported the news, the captain made a prompt decision and directly ordered the ship to enter the gap, and then sank directly.
Although the second-class battleship of more than 80 tons is not too big, the gap was small at first, and more than half of it was blocked. Then two cargo ships loaded with sand and gravel were urgently deployed to sink and block the gap.
Only then did the gap not widen further.
Then the government quickly mobilized people to block the gap, and then a whole regiment of reserve division officers and soldiers came as reinforcements. However, it was difficult to completely plug the gap again, so they quickly changed their target and began to use the terrain to build embankments in the rear to avoid further disasters.
expand.
At this time, the backup levees they prepared in advance also played a major role. Although the levees were not high at first, the gap in the Yellow River when the embankments burst was not too big, especially after a second-class navy ship passed by.
The sinking of the river warship and two civilian ships blocked most of the gap.
So the early flooding was not that much!
With the hard work of nearly 10,000 people, the backup dike took initial shape one day later. Later, more than 30,000 young men and 15,000 soldiers who came in as emergency reinforcements also invested in building the dike.
A total of 50,000 people worked day and night to strengthen and build the backup dam, and finally successfully completed the construction of the backup dam before the water level rose.
Preventing floods from spreading further inland!
However, although the gap was re-blocked, in the past few days, a large amount of river water still flowed through the gap to the rear, and large areas of land were submerged.
The large area of land and villages within the backup dam were completely turned into a lake, the fields disappeared, and the villages completely disappeared.
This dangerous situation alone resulted in the death and disappearance of hundreds of people. Among them, the army and navy officers who participated in the flood fight were killed, and more than 20 people were missing. The others were mostly young men who participated in the flood fight.
As for the ordinary people in the rear, they had been relocated in advance and did not suffer any casualties.
However, the property losses were huge. Not only the existing property was lost, but also the more than 5,000 people who were urgently relocated have lost their homes. Even if the flood recedes in the future, I am afraid that this area will not be destroyed in a short time.
Even if they don't have a way to live there, it will be troublesome to resettle these 5,000 people.
However, at least it did not cause large-scale flooding, which made Xiao Baoguan feel at ease.
When Xiao Baoguan initially felt at ease, officials in Jiangbei Province in the Huaihe River Basin downstream of the Yellow River were even more worried!
It rained day by day. Although it was said that it was heavy rain at the beginning and then it was light and moderate rain, it still caused the river water to surge!
What's more important is that not only the local rainfall in Jiangbei Province, but also heavy rains in Henan and Wanbei Province. These are all upstream areas. These upstream floods will cause disasters to North Anhui Province and Henan.
, but it will definitely flow downstream in the end.
And Jiangbei Road is the unlucky downstream!
This means that the Huaihe River not only has to bear the heavy local rainfall, but also the floods in the middle reaches of the Yellow River!
Therefore, although at present, the overall situation in the Huaihe River Basin is relatively stable, and the local rainfall has not caused any large-scale floods, they know that the real test has not yet come.
When a large amount of flood water flows down the middle and upper reaches of the tributaries of the Huaihe River and the middle reaches of the Yellow River, it will be the real test of the lower reaches of the Huaihe River!
However, based on the weather forecast and the news reported by the five-hundred-mile express horse in Henan and North Anhui Province, it is obvious that the rainfall in these two places is very heavy, which means that the floods are very large.
After calculations, officials from the Water Conservancy Department sent by the Ministry of Works on the supervision team came to a very pessimistic conclusion, that is, the current dams in the Huaihe River Basin are simply unable to withstand such a large-scale flood!
what to do?
The flood discharge capacity of the Huaihe River is limited, and even if the dams are reinforced and raised, they will not have much effect.
If there is too much water that cannot be quickly discharged into the sea, it will remain in the Huaihe River Basin, causing the water level in the entire Huaihe River Basin to skyrocket.
By then, I'm afraid the entire Jiangbei will turn into a lake!
After many discussions, they began to formulate major flood control measures, which were to urgently increase the area of Hongze Lake and the height and thickness of the dykes, and expand the Hongze Lake area to accommodate more floods.
Prevent excessive floods from instantly impacting the Huaihe River embankments, causing them to burst and inundate large areas.
Hongze Lake, this lake is not a natural product. It was actually just a few small lakes at the beginning. After the Yellow River took away the Huaihe River and entered the sea, the water level rose sharply, often causing floods. In order to control the floods, Hongze Lake began to be rebuilt during the Yongle period of the former Ming Dynasty.
The lake embankment finally formed a large-scale embankment with a length of tens of kilometers.
Over the past one hundred years of the Ming dynasty, the dam was reinforced and raised successively, thus forming a large freshwater lake like Hongze Lake.
After the Tang Dynasty unified the country, it also regarded the construction of the Hongze Lake embankment as a key project, and tried to spend huge sums of money to replace the earth embankment with a stone embankment.
However, the time is relatively short, so the effect is limited.
Now, seeing that the flood has exceeded the capacity of the Huaihe River, and is even expected to exceed the flood resistance capacity of the Hongze Lake embankment, urgently raising and strengthening the Hongze Lake embankment has become the most urgent task.
Today, more than 150,000 young people and soldiers are working on the Hongze Lake embankment!
There was no way. Without the large-scale construction machinery as in later generations, if you wanted to reinforce and heighten the dam in a short time, you could only pile up people.
In fact, the flood prevention and relief work in Jiangbei Province had already started at the end of April, because Jinling City sent five hundred miles to rush to report. After the officials of Jiangbei Province received the news, they dared to neglect it and immediately
It is time to organize manpower to carry out flood prevention work.
For flood control, the most important project is to strengthen and raise the Hongze Lake embankment.
In order to fight against floods, the government directly adopted a recruitment model, directly recruiting young people from various prefectures in Jiangbei Province and parts of North Anhui Province.
In addition to young people, the military also provided great assistance. Troops in nearby areas, whether they were main forces or reserve divisions, were basically mobilized urgently. In addition, a large number of troops from other areas were organized for emergency reinforcements.
Compared with the middle reaches of the Yellow River, the empire paid more attention to the security of the middle and lower reaches of the Huaihe River.
Because the middle and lower reaches of the Huaihe River are more dangerous!
If the flood fighting and disaster relief in Henan is just a local flood fighting and disaster relief, then the flood fighting and disaster relief in Jiangbei Province is the gathering of a large amount of the empire's power!
In just a few days, 150,000 people arrived one after another and started construction!
At the same time, the military also provided a special material, cement!
These days, the military is the largest user of cement. Cement is used in the construction of various fortifications. They directly transport a large amount of cement from the strategic material warehouse to serve as flood control materials.
But what's interesting is that the cement is not shipped directly to Jiangbei, because it is still raining there, and the cement cannot dry and solidify quickly.
In fact, these cement bricks are made directly in Zhenjiang and other areas where the weather is good and the sun has begun to shine. These large cement bricks are then loaded onto ships and transported to the construction site through canals.
These cement bricks are used to replace stones.
Because in a short period of time, they were unable to obtain a large amount of flat stone strips to build the embankment, but cement bricks did not have this problem and could be poured directly.
However, time is tight and it is difficult for cement to dry completely in a short time, so it is still of little use.
More importantly, we still need to rely on primitive methods, directly using sand and gravel to heighten and strengthen the embankment!
Seeing 150,000 people working on the lake embankment day and night, even the military generals who had seen the grand scene couldn't help but marvel. This kind of big project is no less than a strategic decisive battle!
As for the local officials, they were even more amazed!
This kind of big project cannot be done normally. Not only is it easy to cause trouble by urgently recruiting young people, but even if there are young people, the cost is not ordinary.
This time, Jiangbei's local finances don't have to worry, because all the funds needed for flood relief this time will be jointly advanced by the Royal Bank and the Imperial Bank. Afterwards, the local finances will only need to provide a small part at most, and the bulk will be
The central government pays the bill!
There are rich people, and the Hongze Lake embankment is getting thicker and taller day by day, and the speed is quite fast!
However, the officials of the Tang Empire were quick to build river embankments, but the floods of the Yellow River were not slow in coming!