Liang Chuan checked the terrain around He Lu. Running in the mountains every day is not in vain. The result of running is that he knows the terrain well. The back of Helu is surrounded by mountains on three sides. The ridges and valleys are intertwined, and the top of the mountain looks like a small plain. The vegetation on the ridge is dense, which is good. Heavy rains will not cause serious disasters such as mudslides, but the valleys are like natural rivers. After heavy rains, the rainwater from the mountains gathers into the valleys, falling from the sky, and the water borrows from the mountains. , turned into an extremely violent flash flood. The four villages at the foot of the mountain may be destroyed at any time.
These valleys are not smooth, winding, twisting and turning, winding on the mountains. There are huge rocks and dead trees in the valley. The huge rocks are exposed in the valley, and the dead trees block the way of rainwater. During heavy rains, mountain water begins to accumulate in the valley. When the scattered water flow in the trumpet-shaped valley is concentrated together, it is more likely to induce flash floods. He Baozheng also said that in the history of Xinghua, even if there were no heavy rains every year, the flash flood would take away several lives, as if the mountain god's mansion was short of servants and was harvesting human lives for him to use.
There is groundwater on the mountain originally, which is an underground spring created by faults in the mountain. Once a heavy rain comes, the water content in the mountain will be saturated, and the water pressure in the rock cracks will also increase sharply. This will also increase the probability of flash floods. In addition, large areas on the mountain will The water-holding capacity of the moso bamboo forest is relatively weak. When the warm and humid air meets the cold air in the forest area, it will form a frontal rain with local heavy precipitation. All signs indicate that this El Niño will bring more than just ordinary small rains in the past. rainfall.
It was rare for the villagers to see Liang Chuan take this matter so seriously. In the past, even if there was a severe drought for a long time, he would always smile and get a tangerine and ride a water tanker to minimize the impact of the drought. According to him, He was talking about the flood, but he mobilized the whole village.
A flood in Xinghua? That is also a problem that only the south bank of the Nanxi River should have trouble with. The terrain to the north is too high. In history, except for the occasional severe floods that flooded part of the farmland on the north bank, there are also flash floods on the mountains. What harm can there be?
Seeing that Liang Chuan was treating this matter so cautiously, He Baozheng handed over the work of making mosquito coils to his wife Wang. He was the first to follow Liang Chuan with a hoe, setting an example and taking the lead in carrying out these flood control projects. Seeing that He Baozheng himself was here, the villagers had nothing to say. They picked up the farm tools at home and gathered under the camphor tree as agreed. Liang Chuan then assigned work.
Liang Chuan asked He Baozheng to count the number of people first, and everyone in the village except Meng Liangchen and his family sent people. He was the only one in Meng Liangchen's family and had an old mother. He had no other labor force, and he didn't know how to do farm work. Besides, the children couldn't afford to delay their studies, so their family didn't have to do it. Zhaodi and his eldest brother separated, and Zhaodi himself came, but neither his eldest brother nor his sister-in-law showed up. Liang Chuan frowned. He had never understood this family. From the beginning to the end, they seemed to be hiding in that dark place every day. In the small shabby thatched house, there is neither production nor communication with others.
Liang Chuan was very pleased. Regardless of whether they were voluntary or forced, there was no second chance for flood control. If something went wrong, the cost of saving would be higher and the losses would be greater. It would be too late to make amends.
Although everyone is still doubtful about Liang Chuan's approach, most people still don't care, because it is the slack season now, and the growth of crops in the fields is basically stable. Now watering is just a simple matter of opening the field ridges and introducing water flow. Just your own field will suffice, and you can irrigate it in a short time. Everyone has nothing to do. Please support Liang Chuan's work. Their women are now busier than themselves, the head of the family. They work for Liang Chuan every day. Men can't just do nothing. People tend to get sick when they are too idle. .
Liang Chuan led everyone up the mountain. The first thing he did was to widen the bell mouths of all the valleys that wind down the mountain. The violent flash floods are caused by the rapid shrinkage of the bell mouths. The pressure of the flood increases and the flow speed becomes faster. It rushes violently down the mountain. Unstoppable. Before leaving, each family brought its own farm tools, and tools such as bamboo baskets were distributed by Liang Chuan. This is what he does. Now he distributes them to the villagers for free. The store now has a lot of stock, at least this few.
The mountains are high and densely forested, and fortunately there is shade from the sun, so working on the mountains does not seem too tiring. What's more, there are so many people, and the workload that one person has to do is actually not that big when a project is shared. Dozens of people, some felling trees and others clearing obstacles, moved the felled trees to high, open areas. Others were responsible for digging the land and widening and deepening the ravines in the valley. If these ravines are deepened, they can become natural river channels, guiding the accumulated water in the mountains to flow to low-lying areas. After the bell mouth at the mouth of the valley is removed, when the mountain torrents gather together, the water level will not rise sharply, but will flow slowly. Go down the mountain.
But even for such a small project, a strong man from a village still worked on it for three full days. Liang Chuan practiced it and chopped down trees with an ax himself. His ax was so powerful that his workload alone could equal that of several people in the village. of strong labor.
When everyone sees that Liang Chuan is so friendly, they won't feel so resentful when they work by themselves. Everyone is doing it for the benefit of the village. People like Liang Chuan can be shameless and do it by themselves. What can't we ordinary people do? of.
Liang Chuan suggested that villagers who have money should try their best to replace it with grain. Many people have listened. Now they communicate with each other from time to time while working. How much grain did your family exchange today? What is the price of rice today? Although other villages didn't know why they were so crazy about exchanging food, their enthusiasm did not diminish, and they still went to exchange food happily, because Liang Chuan himself collected so much food that the He family's ancestral hall was filled. You can't go wrong if you follow Liang Chuan. Who knows that he is a capable person? Even the children's teacher, Mr. Meng, obeys Liang Chuan's words. Our illiterate Bai Ding doesn't understand anything, so he has to learn from smart people. point.
After clearing the bell mouth of the valley, the next step is the valley road. The valley road is the riverbed of mountain torrents. If the mountain torrents were to change their course and flow to the villages at the foot of the mountain, the consequences would be disastrous. The valley stretched to the foot of the mountain. Liang Chuan led everyone to block the gap in the valley and cut the valley deeper into the middle. They cleared the trees and mud and rocks blocked in the valley, just like dredging the river bed. When the big rocks on a mountain trail are cleared away, only a few small rocks are left. If the river bed is just mud, that's not good either. The mud and sand are easily washed away.
The chopped wood is sorted into open areas and not thrown away randomly. It may rain continuously in the next few months. By then, rice will not be enough. The family must also have firewood to have food. After the firewood is piled together, After the daily work is done, the firewood begins to be divided. Everyone takes a little and carries it home in a bamboo basket. Farmers know how to make a living, and it doesn't take Liang Chuan to say that they would do the same. Even if they don't burn the firewood themselves and sell it in the market, they can still get a good price.
There is only one large valley in the mountain behind He Lu, facing the village. The valley disappears at the foot of the mountain. But if a flash flood comes, the water will not disappear. Liang Chuan led everyone to clean up the valley in the mountain, and finally cleared a river bed. At the foot of the mountain, he led the crowd to dig deep trenches. One of the two ditches is a ditch connecting the valley to digest mountain floods. It extends along the mountain back to Helu to the edge of Nanxi River, draining the water into the river.
The other is a ditch that separates Shanshui Village.
The other three villages also had the same flash flood risks as Helu, but they didn't care. Even when the people of Helu were doing these fortifications, they tried their best to ridicule them. The villagers of Helu were not afraid of these poor people now. They just wanted to fight with them when they picked them up. They fight. Nowadays, He Lu Village has a reputation for violent fighting. One village singled out three other villages, and He Lu's reputation for violence was revealed.
If they don't do it, we have to do it well. Everyone dug a drainage ditch more than three feet deep and five feet wide between the two villages, which was widened on the basis of the original watering ditch. Therefore, the amount of work was much smaller. The excavated canal soil was piled on the canal bank on the side of Helu, adding another layer of protection.
Just digging these valleys and ditches took a village of strong laborers a month. Liang Chuan took most of them to the battle himself. After a month, his skin was tanned and shiny, and he completely transformed into a farmer. appearance.
Although Fan Dianyuan and his sugar cane fields are also within the Helu boundary, they don't have to worry, because when Liang Chuan taught them how to grow sugar cane, the fields were stacked very high, and the drainage in the field was also designed very reasonably. When there is water accumulation, break the field ridges and the water will drain out immediately.
The drainage canals in every field in the Helu field have been dug deep again. Even if it rains continuously for a year, no one has to worry about the crops in the field being flooded or damaged, because the crops in the field are damaged. If there is too much water, it will naturally flow into the drainage canal and be drained along the Nanxi River.
After the canal was dug, Liang Chuan led the villagers to inspect each house. If there were any leaks in the thatched roof tiles, he quickly organized people to work together to prick the grass and re-anvil. If the tiles needed to be repaired, His family paid for the materials, and Liang Chuan asked Zhao Xiaopin to help with the repairs.
Some earthen houses have been lost over the years, with large cracks in the walls. Liang Chuan organized everyone to repair them together. Once the earthen houses were soaked in water, the danger would be even greater. Otherwise, if they were not repaired, they would be damaged by the rain. It must collapse. The villagers originally followed Liangchuan in digging ditches and ditches. Everyone saw that these can prevent floods, so digging turned into building houses. Some people were reluctant to repair their houses when they saw them were damaged. It turned out that they were ruthless. I can't help but take advantage of this opportunity. Every house has holes to repair or collapses to repair. People are watching. It turns out that Saburo is benefiting everyone in the name of flood control. He is doing it in a different way. When it comes to repairing a house, I can save a lot of money just in labor costs.
Liang Chuan didn't expect that his behavior would misunderstand the villagers again. He was really thinking about preventing floods and waterlogging. If he didn't take precautions before the disaster, and only dig toilets when he was in a hurry, he would be crying.
Two months of busy work have passed, and the sun above everyone's heads is still the same as before. After everyone was done, they went back. Although they had no complaints, they couldn't help but worry about Liang Chuan. Liang Chuan had vowed in the county office that it would definitely rain in the next three months. Two days passed in the blink of an eye, and the flood control works were also completed. Okay, what about the rain? What about floods? If Liangchuan hadn't been flooded for three months, he would have been exiled to Chaozhou.
