Su Wan rode a carriage on the bumpy road for half an hour before reaching the dam.
You can see the rushing water of Xuanhe River from a distance. The sediment turns the water yellow. Although it is not in the flood season, it is still rolling rapidly. If you stand close and look, you will always feel like it is being swallowed up.
On top of the dam, there are many bamboo and wood supports, and workers are hammering on them.
Here, there are soldiers and people, naked to the waist, walking on the bridge built with wooden frames.
Su Jing introduced her ideas to them all the way, and Su Wan and Su Yi listened carefully.
Today's dam has begun to take shape. It will take at least nearly two years to complete. There are two months of flood season every year. Construction is suspended during these two months for the safety of workers.
In the middle and lower reaches, he issued an order for officials to lead the people to plant trees on both sides of the Xuan River.
The upstream area is hit hardest every year during the flood season, so he dug trees from other mountains and planted them directly on both banks of the upstream.
After the trees have adapted for a year, and there is no shortage of water on both sides of the bank, the roots of the trees can become deeply rooted in the ground.
Looking from a distance, densely packed trees have been transplanted in the open space across the Xuan River. This is a big project, and it all depends on the joint efforts of the military and civilians.
The purpose is to be able to withstand the impact and sediment when there is a flood during the flood season, so that nearby villages can be less affected.
Anyway, when ordinary people work, the court not only reduces taxes but also pays them wages. Why not?
This flood does not happen every year, but it always happens once every few years. It is a devastating impact. People on both sides of the Taiwan Strait see that their days have just passed and they have to start over. This is why kings of all dynasties are very distressed by this announcement. River flooding.
There are many people who want to do practical work, but they still have too little experience and theoretical knowledge.
On Su Jing's part, he relied entirely on his own understanding, as well as his sleepless research day and night, and the series of measures Su Wan listed for him, so that he could confidently contain this flood.
Looking at this posture, we can vaguely see how majestic the dam will be when it is completed.
It will stand here for generations to come, protecting the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait from flooding.
"We will live up there in a while. We have to come down and walk up the mountain. The courtyard with the white walls is where we will live." Su Jing opened the window and pointed toward the mountain.
Looking through the carriage window, there is a small village on the mountain. The eldest brother's small yard with white walls looks particularly obvious. It is the best among the small wooden houses.
At the foot of the mountain, the three brothers and sisters got out of the carriage and walked up the mountain.
The path up the mountain is paved with stones, and the weeds on both sides have been cleared. The slope is not too steep, and it doesn't take much effort to go up.
Just as you go up, take a look at the scenery below. The rushing river and the working workers gradually become smaller.
But standing on it, you can have a clear view of the scene below.
The small courtyard looks quite small from the bottom of the mountain, but when you come up, you find that it is quite spacious. The rooms are all clean and no one has lived there at all, except Su Jing's original room.
Xizi and Zhuzi were already waiting in the yard, cleaning the yard cleanly.
When the villagers on the mountain heard that Mr. Su's family was coming, they all sent over their good things.
There are chickens, ducks, bacon, and freshly picked vegetables.
Those village women usually had to cook a big pot of rice for the dam workers. When they heard that Mr. Su had a younger sister who was as beautiful as a flower, they all came to the yard to take a peek.
Su Wan also showed them generously, and asked Liu Yun and Liu Ying to share the candies and pastries he brought with them.
"Miss Su is so beautiful."
"Yes, I have lived for decades, and I have never seen such a delicate and beautiful girl."
"That's right, you don't see how Mr. Su is born well, so how can his biological sister be so good?"
"Mr. Su's younger brothers are also well-born. Each one has his own merits. This whole family was carefully created by the female snail empress. We are the only ones who were thrown out."
The village women praised the Su brothers and sisters for being so kind. Each of them smiled honestly and from the bottom of their hearts.
Because Su Jing was so sincere to them on weekdays, he didn't keep much of the food that Su Wan had people transport for him, and it was all confiscated.
The guards crowded into a room, built their own bunkhouse, and kept vigil in twos and twos at night.
In fact, after staying in the bustling city for a long time, it would be nice to go to the countryside and live for a few days.
The most important thing is that I don’t feel bored when I stay with my eldest brother.
The eldest brother still goes down the mountain twice a day to inspect the dam.
It was getting cold in early autumn, so Su Wan took out another sum of money and asked them to buy cloth and wear some clothes for the workers and soldiers to keep out the cold.
It's all her personal money, and it doesn't cost much money. The monthly net profit from so many of her stores is quite high, so it's nothing.
However, she is still not as wealthy as Gu Yue. Her business has just started, and it is not as deep-rooted as the Gu family has been running for many years.
That fifty thousand taels is indeed nothing to others.
…
When Gu Yue arrived in Youxian County, she went to the county magistrate's office first to inquire. She told the magistrate's wife that she was Su Jing's sister.
The county magistrate's wife was very puzzled after hearing this. Mr. Su said that there was only one sister in the family, and now there is another one. What's going on?
"Miss, are you Mr. Su's cousin or cousin?"
Facing the county magistrate's wife's doubts, Gu Yue felt embarrassed and shook her head:
"Uh... not at all... I should consider her as my adopted sister!"
It's true, they are not related by blood, they just grew up together.
Now that Gu Yue thinks about it, she seems to be nothing in the Su family. Except for the proof of existence in those years, everything else is so pale and feeble.
She is an outsider. If she wants to go to the dam, she must find someone to inform Mr. Su and he will allow Gu Yue to enter.
When the county magistrate's wife heard that she was a adopted sister, she did not leave her to rest at her house. Gu Yue went to find an inn to stay by herself.
Later in the evening, Su Wan, Su Yi, and Liu Yun Liu Ying prepared meals and waited for Su Jing to come back to eat while he went to the dam.
In addition to their own food, the guards also had to prepare food, so a large iron pot was set up in the yard.
Not long after Su Jing came back, the county magistrate came and said that a Miss Gu wanted to meet Mr. Su.
Su Jing had always known that Gu Yue donated 50,000 taels of silver to the Xuanhe Dam. Now she came over and specified that she wanted to see Su Jing. From a public perspective, he should go and see her.
For selfish reasons, he didn't want to have anything to do with her.
So Su Jing asked Su Wan:
"Wan Wan, Gu Yue is coming, are you willing to see her?" He always knew that these two girls were not easy to deal with.
But since the incident with the fourth child happened, Su Jing knew that the sister she loved so much was not from the same family as her Su family.
