Inside the Manna Hall.
Just when Li Zexuan was bored with waiting and wanted to find a place to sit down and rest for a while, there was a sudden sound of footsteps outside the hall.
Li Zexuan's face became solemn, and he quickly stood at attention in the main hall.
"Haha! You must be impatient with waiting, right?"
Sure enough, the person who came was Li Er. Old Li Longxing walked into the hall with a tiger's step. When he walked to Li Zexuan, he said with a half-smile.
Although Li Zexuan also had this idea in his mind, he would not be stupid enough to say it. Hearing this, he quickly cupped his hands and said: "Your Majesty summoned me to the palace. You must have something important to tell me. I am in high spirits this time and ready to listen." Hadith, how can you be impatient~?”
"Haha! You kid!"
Li Er pointed at Li Zexuan, smiled angrily, and then walked towards the couch above.
At this time, a chamberlain came to report: "Your Majesty, Duke Zhao, Prime Minister Fang, Prime Minister Du, Xiao Shangshu, and Yan Shangshu are waiting to meet you outside the palace!"
"Xuan!"
Li Er sat on the couch and said in a deep voice.
After a while, several important officials of the empire walked in. Changsun Wuji and others were a little surprised that Li Zexuan was also in the palace.
After the monarch and his ministers greeted each other, Li Er nodded to Zhao Song. The latter took out five pamphlets and gave one to each of the five ministers. Li Er said at this time:
"My dear friends, this is the excerpt that Li Zexuan presented yesterday. I had someone copy it for five minutes. Please read it first. After reading it, I will ask you questions!"
"No~!"
The five important ministers agreed one after another, and then they all glanced at Li Zexuan imperceptibly, probably thinking to themselves: Wherever Li Zexuan is, there is right and wrong!
When everyone lowered their heads and saw the first few sentences of Li Zexuan's memorial, a sense of absurdity arose in their hearts. If it weren't for the wrong occasion, they would probably all laugh like Li Er did at the beginning last night. There was a loud sound, but soon, their faces became serious.
Time passed bit by bit, and there was silence in the hall. Li Zexuan stood silently in the hall with his hands folded, secretly guessing what difficult questions these old ministers would ask him later.
"Huh? Have you read it all? Do you, dear friends, have any objections to what Marquis Yong'an wrote in the book?"
About a quarter of an hour later, Li Er's voice sounded in the hall.
The five ministers first looked at each other, and then Fang Xuanling stepped forward and said: "Your Majesty, I have a few questions for Marquis Yong'an. Is it okay?"
Li Er waved his hands and said: "You don't have to be restrained. If you have any questions for Marquis Yong'an, just ask. Marquis Yong'an, if you can answer them, feel free to answer them!"
"I obey the order!"
All the ministers in the hall raised their hands and said.
Fang Xuanling looked at Li Zexuan at this time and asked: "May I ask Yong'an Marquis, you said that the water quality of the Yellow River was relatively clear before the Qin and Han Dynasties. Do you have any evidence~"
Li Zexuan stepped forward and replied: "Of course there is evidence! In the past few days, this junior and the gentlemen of the academy have read through the classics and history of previous dynasties and found that the previous records of "He Qing" began in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, which shows that before the Eastern Han Dynasty, relatively speaking It is said that the phenomenon of clear rivers may be common and not unusual, so no one has recorded it! Since the Eastern Han Dynasty, the sand content of the Yellow River has increased and the turbidity has become worse, so the "clear rivers" have become the country's auspiciousness, and it is recorded in history!"
Fang Xuanling contemplated for a moment, then nodded slightly and said, "The Marquis of Yong'an said in the memorial that if we ignore the increasing sediment in the Yellow River, the Eight Rivers in Chang'an will become turbid in less than twenty years?"
Li Zexuan said: "As for this, I believe that the juniors will not tell me, but the Prime Minister must know better than me, right? What was the water quality around Chang'an City like in the previous dynasty? What is it like now? You should have your own thoughts! "
He had only traveled back in time for a year, so he naturally didn't know about the situation in the former Sui Dynasty, but Li Gang knew! According to Li Gang, the water quality around Chang'an City is indeed not as good as that of the previous dynasty!
Fang Xuanling, Changsun Wuji and others looked at each other, and finally sighed, obviously acquiescing to this fact.
Li Zexuan added: "The quality of water is related to the lives of millions of people inside and outside Chang'an City. Last year, cholera broke out in Chang'an City. Although it had nothing to do with the presence of yellow sand in the river, it was also caused by the pollution of the water quality. Cholera! The land we are in now has soft soil. When there is a strong wind, it will be filled with yellow sand. When it rains heavily, the loess will flow into the river. If things go on like this, the sediment content in the Yellow River will inevitably become higher and higher, causing Water cannot bear the consequences!"
Everyone's expressions changed. After all, the cholera in Chang'an City last year was still fresh in their minds!
Fang Xuanling paused, and then asked after a while: "Yong'an Hou, you said that the increase in sediment content in the Yellow River water will easily cause the river bed downstream to be too high, and a heavy rain will cause the Yellow River to burst its banks. Is this true~ ?”
Li Zexuan smiled slightly and said: "This is natural! Yan Shangshu is good at engineering and manufacturing. He must know this better than me! If Fang Xiang doesn't believe this junior, you can ask Yan Shangshu!"
Without waiting for Fang Xuanling to ask, Yan Lide nodded and said: "Yes! If the Yellow River sediment is allowed to accumulate, the sediment will be deposited in the shallower downstream areas, and the river bed will definitely be too high. Over the years, the river bed will be raised. Zhangdu is not a problem! If there are continuous heavy rains, the lower reaches of the Yellow River will definitely burst its banks! Thousands of people will suffer by then!"
In fact, Yan Lide's prediction is still optimistic. In modern times, the height of the Yellow River's water surface is more than 70 meters higher than the altitude of Kaifeng City, making it a veritable above-ground hanging river!
Xiao Yu asked in a deep voice: "Yong'an Marquis, do you mean that if the court does not adopt your tree planting measures, the floods in the lower reaches of the Yellow River will become more and more serious in the future~?"
Li Zexuan nodded and said:
"In the past few days, Mr. Li Gang and I have read through the local county annals of the states and counties in the lower reaches of the Yellow River in previous dynasties. It is well-documented that in the more than 800 years from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty to the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were only twenty incidents in the lower reaches of the Yellow River. Floods due to levee breaches occur on average once every forty-one years;
However, in the more than 400 years from the Three Kingdoms to the Sui Dynasty, twenty-three floods occurred in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, an average of once every seventeen years! If we don't take measures now, the Yellow River will burst its banks more and more frequently in the future, even to the point of breaking its banks every three years! At that time, the money spent by the court on controlling floods and rescuing people will far exceed the money spent on planting trees now! "
Speak with data and speak with facts. This is what Li Zexuan, an engineering expert, is best at and likes to do most. After saying this, the faces of everyone in the hall became serious.
And what Li Zexuan said next was even more shocking, "Before his death, my master not only predicted this year's locust plague, but also predicted that nine years later, the Yellow River would burst its banks again, and the entire city of Luoyang would be flooded and all life would be devastated. !!”
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