Liu Bei took Mi Zhu, Jian Yong, and Tian Yu aside to discuss how to bring back Youzhou Paoze's family by sea.
Zhuge Jin finally had a chance to breathe. He saw that today's business had been completed, and the Song family's establishment of its own business had been witnessed by everyone.
The rest of the official business can be discussed anywhere, there is no need to occupy the territory of my uncle's house.
So he suggested that Song Xin announce the banquet and send most of the guests' gifts out. There is no need to elaborate on the red tape.
After drinking, Zhang Fei didn't care about etiquette and left first. Others who had no excuse to stay also dispersed.
But there were still several groups of people left, rushing to chat with Zhuge Jin and ask for various instructions.
Zhuge Jin had no choice but to lead the remaining people to another side hall and continue to entertain guests.
He saw that Chen Qun was the most prepared and even came to him with a stack of manuscripts, so he wanted to take care of Chen Qun's affairs first.
Unexpectedly, Chen Qun was very discerning and proactively suggested: "My affairs here are relatively slow. Sir, you should deal with other people's requests first."
This sentence is not only humility, but also puts a little pressure on the people around you: If you are also rambling, then be more conscious!
Zhuge Jin raised his eyes and saw that the rest of the people left behind were not Liu Bei's subordinates, but representatives of the local gentry in Guangling.
After all, Liu Bei's men came to talk to him about official matters. They usually had plenty of time, so there was no need to take advantage of the opportunity to treat him.
As for the local gentry, there is no such shop beyond this village. Zhuge Jin is already a captain of two thousand stones and is only twenty-one years old. How can they usually have the chance to meet him?
Zhuge Jin had no choice but to apologize briefly to Chen Qun, and then chatted a few words with Bulong and Wei Hui, two local elders: "I wonder if I can help you?"
The two elders did not dare to ask for help, and kept saying: "There is no talk of meeting him. Since the last time he asked his grandson to pay his respects, he has not been able to meet him. Today I have this opportunity to tell the school captain some recent developments: my nephew heard that the school captain established his reputation and secured the honor. The situation is peaceful and the people are very excited. He will return from Wu County in the near future.
It’s just that they have been away from home for a long time, and the local officials change frequently. They are afraid that they may not recognize a few acquaintances after returning home, so they also asked the school captain to help introduce and make new friends for the sake of their friendship as classmates..."
Bu Long also wanted to be shameless and did not dare to directly ask Zhuge Jin to help him seek an official position. He only asked him to help introduce some connections and friends.
How could Zhuge Jin not understand the subtext?
This kind of thing is normal, just like a year ago, the two of them were classmates and fresh graduates looking for jobs.
A year later, one of them became a captain of the imperial court, and the other was still working as a melon farmer, so he would definitely join the captain.
Fortunately, Bu Zhi's academic ability is not bad, so the recommendation is not considered nepotism, but only meritocracy.
In fact, the last time Zhuge Jin heard Liu Bei mention Bu Zhi and Yan Zhen to him, he knew that Liu Bei had already begun to recruit him——
There was no way, who could let Liu Bei hear the rumor that "Bu Zhi, Yan Zhicai and Zhuge Jin are only between brothers".
Zhuge Jin is just getting a free favor, so why not?
He also said generously: "Brother Zishan and their talents are more than enough for any county magistrate or job. They are just young and have little qualifications. They need to practice slowly, so don't worry."
The Buwei family was overjoyed and thanked Zhuge Jin profusely, but they didn't know that Zhuge Jin actually didn't give anything.
Bu Long's words were flashy, and he also wanted to come up with some conditions to please him, to show his gratitude, and to take a long-term view to catch the big fish.
But Zhuge Jin was too busy with business, so he prevaricated and confused him without giving him a chance to speak.
…
I spent a stick of incense before and after to get rid of those who were seeking official positions.
Zhuge Jin then said sorry to Chen Qun who had been waiting on the other side, and then started to sort out his business.
Chen Qun came here because of the "work-for-relief" thing that we talked about a while ago.
In the past few days, he had prepared a lot of materials, read "Guanzi" carefully, and reviewed the records of Sang Hongyang in "The Biography of Huozhi".
Therefore, the topic went smoothly. Chen Qun came with ideas, just like the PPT of the future report project.
Zhuge Jin only needs to listen first and then make a few comments.
Just listen to Chen Qunhui's report: "I checked the land acreage documents in each county and visited everywhere, and found that Guangling's farming has a huge weakness. If it can be supplemented, it will greatly increase the production of grain and rice."
"What weakness?"
Chen Qun took out a map, pointed at it and said, "Looking from the map, Guangling County is extremely vast, and the entire territory is a plain, but its grain production and population are not as good as those of Xipi."
Zhuge Jin thought thoughtfully and asked, "Could it be that Sheyangze occupies too much area? In fact, can the flat land in Guangling be twice that of Xiapi?"
Chen Qun: "When I calculated, I had already excluded Sheyangze. And although Daze occupies a large area, it is conducive to irrigation. For example, Zhenze (Taihu Lake) is beneficial and harmless to Wu County."
Seeing that the other party did not make any stupid mistakes, Zhuge Jin nodded and encouraged: "That's good, keep talking."
Chen Qun: “Later, I conducted an in-depth investigation and found out that although Guangling has a lot of arable land, it produces very little grain, mainly because of insufficient irrigation and salty soil.
Hangou gives Guangling the benefit of the canal, but it also often causes the tide to flow back into the canal and Sheyangze through the Yangtze River. Especially during spring tide season, the water is slightly salty and bitter. "
Zhuge Jin suddenly realized: It turned out to be a problem with the saline-alkali land.
As a gold medal education and training lecturer in his previous life, he also had rich knowledge of history and geography. He knew that the northern Jiangsu region had never been a land of plenty in ancient times.
It now appears that the agricultural constraints in northern Jiangsu at different stages in history were actually caused by different reasons:
Before the Song Dynasty, the Guangling Tide caused seawater to pour into the canal from the Yangtze River, forming a saline-alkali land.
After the Song Dynasty, although the Guangling tide and backflow disappeared. However, in the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yellow River changed its course and diverted the Huaihe River into the sea, forming Hongze Lake. The Huaihe River was seriously flooded. It was not until the North Jiangsu Irrigation Main Canal was built after the founding of the People's Republic of China that the problem was alleviated.
It can be said that saline-alkali land and floods are each responsible for the poverty of the northern Jiangsu Plain for a thousand years.
The era Zhuge Jin lives in now belongs to the previous thousand years. Therefore, as long as the saline-alkali land is solved, the Northern Jiangsu Plain can be turned into a land of plenty.
Thinking of this, he couldn't help but become enthusiastic.
Of course, there are several types of saline-alkali land in Guangling.
Some saline-alkali lands are too close to the sea and the groundwater itself is very salty. Such lands are hopeless and it is better to develop the sun-salted salt industry in the future.
What can be saved is only the part of the saline-alkali land caused by the intrusion of the tide.
Chen Qun has done a good job in his homework these days. He also visited some places on the spot and cooperated with previous years' accounts and land registers.
According to his estimate, the ratio of these two types of saline-alkali land is about 50:50.
Therefore, if the tide intrusion can be solved, half of the saline-alkali land problem in Guangling County can be solved.
As a result, the area suitable for farming in Guangling County will be greatly increased, and the yields of many existing fields will also be increased. In the future, it may even accommodate several times the agricultural population.
…
Chen Qun calculated this expected profit for Zhuge Jin, and it was indeed very tempting.
But Chen Qun could only do this.
He had forty thousand men and a winter's time.
But Chen Qun was at a loss as to how to utilize this labor force, how to plan, construct, and solve this problem.
He is not a water conservancy expert.
Zhuge Jin is not a water conservancy expert, not to mention that he has just finished listening to the report, and he is not thinking so fast now.
After thinking about it for about a cup of tea, Zhuge Jin said casually:
"Have you ever considered building a sluice gate between Hangou and the Yangtze River? The sluice gate can be opened for navigation during normal times, but it will be closed once the tide rises, and salt water will not be able to enter the canal."
Although Zhuge Jin rarely came to Yangzhou in his previous life, he studied and worked in Qiantang for many years, which is also the starting point of the Grand Canal.
He had visited the Canal Museum several times and knew that ship locks that could navigate between river sections with different water levels did not appear until the Qing Dynasty.
But if it was just a simple gate to isolate the sea tide and allow navigation without considering the water level difference, then this technology existed during the Sui and Tang Dynasties.
To be precise, after Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty rebuilt the Grand Canal, the Hangou Gate was built in Yangzhou during the Zhenguan and Yonghui years of the early Tang Dynasty to prevent the intrusion of sea tides. This led to the fact that Yangzhou in the Tang and Song Dynasties was much richer than Guangling in the Han Dynasty.
From the Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, the technological span was not that big. It is possible to overcome this problem by using your brain and designing some ingenious ideas.
It's just that Zhuge Jin hasn't figured out how to overcome it yet.
Of course Chen Qun was shocked when he heard this.
As a Han Dynasty person, of course he had never heard of gates that blocked rivers:
"Sir, are you saying... to build a gate that will cut off the entire canal when lowered? But the water level in Hangou is high where the north mouth is connected to the Huai River, and the water level is low where the south mouth is connected to the river.
After the gate is lowered, the water flowing in from the Huaihe River cannot flow out and is stored in the canal. The water level in the southern section of the river and Sheyangze will rise.
The edge of the canal is deep enough not to overflow. However, the shores of Sheyangze Lake are flat, and the surrounding low-lying areas may be flooded by impounded water. Moreover, in the future, the gates will be open to navigation only at certain fixed hours every day and when the river water level is almost high due to tides. "
Chen Qun thought of several disadvantages in one breath.
Sheyangze is a lake in the middle section of Hangou Canal, similar to Hongze Lake in later generations.
The reason why there is a gap between the two ends of Hangou but the river is still not drained is that it relies on the water from Sheyangze to regulate and store it.
When Zhuge Jin heard that Chen Qun could raise these new questions, he had to praise him for doing his homework carefully. These are all good questions.
Zhuge Jin also saw the move and asked: "Are there people farming in the low-lying muddy land around Sheyangze? Normally, the tide intrudes and the water level will rise, right? There should be no fertile farmland in this kind of place."
Chen Qun responded: "That's not true. At most, some people occasionally grow water chestnuts and lotus roots. There is no fertile land, and no one settles on the edge of the swamp."
An idea flashed through Zhuge Jin's mind: "That won't do. Anyway, the rising water level will flood the rotten land, and there will be no one to plant it in the first place. You might as well take advantage of this period to mobilize the people to dredge and rectify the area around Sheyangze.
You can estimate how much the water level will rise if the gate is built, and then take half of it as the dividing line. The weir height was dug low to form a polder, and reeds were planted on the new lake shore to stabilize the mud and prevent collapse.
Moreover, with this construction method, all the silt you want to dredge is exposed, which is several times more labor-intensive than digging silt from the bottom of the water? If we don’t do this while the water level is low before the water is impounded, when will we wait?
In this way, after the completion of the project, there will be a lot more fertile polders, and the water storage depth of Sheyangze can also be improved to facilitate long-term irrigation, killing three birds with one stone. "
Zhuge Jin casually mentioned a bunch of benefits.
There was actually another one, but he hadn't thought of it yet.
That is, once the canal has a lock and the water level rises, there will be no need to rely on the current special boats for transportation. Maybe the Mi family's large boats can be used instead.
In this way, the labor of loading and unloading dock workers in Huaiyin County and Guangling County can be saved in the future, and there will be no need to switch between river boats and canal boats for loading and unloading.
As for the "30,000 water workers" who lost their jobs as a result, they could directly go to military camps. Anyway, there is no need to worry about not having enough land to farm these days. What is lacking is population and labor force.
Chen Qun was completely shocked by the pie that Zhuge Jin drew in reverse.
I didn’t expect that Mr. Ziyu could draw so many benefits by drawing inferences from one instance.
Chen Qun felt his mouth go dry for a while: "Does sir know how to repair the gate?"
Zhuge Jin: "I don't know yet, but give me a few months to discuss with others, and maybe I can figure it out."
Chen Qun was anxious: "But I can't start work just because of a 'maybe'. In the past two months, what have you asked the people who are doing work-for-relief work to do? They don't wait for anyone during the slack season in winter."
Zhuge Jin thought for a while: "Didn't I tell you that the floodgates won't be repaired? We can dredge Sheyang Ze and build polders first. Once the gates are built, things will be settled."
Chen Qun: "However, we don't know how much the water level will rise compared to now, how high the polder pile should be, and the original terrain level of each place. And if the last step of building the gate cannot be completed, all the manpower in front of it will be in vain. Okay, isn’t it too much?”
Zhuge Jin: "It won't be in vain. At most, it won't happen this year, but it will definitely happen next year. Just don't let the people who work for relief be too tired, and control the rate of food consumption."
Now we have gillnet fishing and other subsidies. Yunchang even sent troops to Yuzhang for food. The food gap squeezed out is enough to cover the expenditure of food-for-work relief.
Just say that this is my suggestion so that you won't object. "
Zhuge Jin has figured it out: some of the difficulties that Chen Qun is still emphasizing are mainly engineering survey issues.
For example, I don’t know how to measure the altitude of places around Yangze. I don’t know whether the water level when measuring is high or low, so I don’t know how deep to dig or how high to pile it.
But these problems can be easily solved by future generations who have a thorough understanding of mathematical ideas——
For example, even if a person does not know trigonometric functions, as long as he understands "Line Propagation" and "Similar Triangles" taught in the fourth grade of elementary school, and knows how to use them effectively, he can easily measure altitude with modern tools. .
Most people don't know how to do it. It's just that they don't understand it thoroughly enough and haven't thought of how to apply it, rather than insufficient knowledge reserves.
In "Bright Sword", you can tell how far away the Sakata Regiment is from the mortar by raising your thumb. This is the reason.
Zhuge Jin was very confident that if he was given some time, he would be able to solve these minor problems.
Even if he doesn't have time to solve it himself, he can still let A Liang practice his skills when the time comes.
I believe that given A Liang’s flexibility of thinking and the secret papers on basic mathematics and optics that I have taught him in the past two months.
As long as he is given a compass stone that can be used as a level, which existed in the Han Dynasty, and a few reference poles, A Liang can measure the altitude by comparing his middle fingers.
Before Zhuge Jin planned to go to Yuzhang this time, he wrote a letter to A Liang, asking A Liang to find a way to escape and meet him in Yuzhang. This would save the brothers the trouble of being separated in two states and conducting distance education.
Zhuge Jin calculated that if A Liang finished learning his first batch of scrolls, his mathematics level would at least be improved to the level of finishing the second grade of junior high school, and he would only be short of "quadratic equations" and "factorization" before graduating from the third grade of junior high school. These two pieces of content.
Coupled with the basic optical knowledge in the physics scroll, this level is enough to plan the canal gates and the polders after the water level in Sheyangze rises.
It also allows A Liang to learn and sell immediately, and put it to use immediately. As soon as he debuts, he will leave a reputation as a "sage minister" in the history books and be at the bottom of the list.
