In August of the third year of Wanli, heavy rain came late in the Jianghuai area, but it was slow and fast, and never stopped.
Qinghe County, Jiangsu Province, Hou Erba from the Eleven Fort in Gaoyan Village finished pulling out the last few grains of rice in the bowl, then picked up the earthen pot next to him, and poured out the already pulpy pumpkin soup like a giant whale sucking water. Drink half of it.
Looking at the half-grown girl squatting next to him and swallowing her saliva, he put down the earthen pot, took out a handful of fried rice grains with shells from his arms, put it on the stove and said to her: "Well, these can be used as snacks for you. Eat. Dad is out patrolling the dike."
His wife Lin saw him giving her daughter rice grains to eat again, and said to the side: "These are for you to quench your hunger, what are you giving her to eat?" After saying that, she glanced at her daughter who didn't dare to stretch out her hand. The girl was so frightened that she was about to cry.
Hou Er stood up and scolded: "You silly woman, why are you trying to scare her?" He bent down and swept the rice grains on the stove into the palm of his hand, handed it to his daughter and said with a smile: "Eat, Dad still has a lot. , I also need to bring some to Uncle Tian who is on shift. Eat, it’s okay.”
After saying that, Hou Er stood up, put on a blackened raincoat, and a patched bamboo hat, and tied two cotton ropes tightly under his chin.
Lifting up a gong lying on the ground at the door of his house, Hou Er left the shack-like thatched house and walked barefoot into the rain.
...
At this time, everyone in Qinghe County has been mobilized. County Magistrate Ma Shengming personally led the team and was patrolling the Gaojiayan Embankment in the heavy rain.
Tian Zhixing, a resident of the Eleventh Fort of Gaojiayan who accompanied Magistrate Ma, was already like a mud monkey, with his body and face covered in mud and water.
He sat on the ground and put on the straw sandals he had just thrown off. He stood up and took off the bamboo hat on his head. He let the rain fall on his face and wiped it several times. This made him look like a man.
Putting on his bamboo hat, Tian Zhixing shouted loudly to Ma Shengming: "Old parents, I have arranged the patrols in this fort, and they are all patrolling with gongs. Don't worry. The rain is too heavy, it's coming to me." Drink some ginger soup at home to keep you warm.”
Ma Shengming didn't seem to hear, and just looked at Hongze Lake in the rain.
The Gaojiayan embankment with a width of 14 feet at the top of the dam was built with loess and willow trees were planted on it. Half a month ago, this embankment was still a beautiful traffic artery and a main exit of Qinghe County.
Ma Shengming, who passed by Gaojiayan to see someone off half a month ago, clearly saw a slope covered with grass and willow trees under the embankment. This large slope, which is hundreds of feet long, slowly slopes down along the embankment and plunges into Hongze Lake in the distance.
At that time, Ma Shengming still thought in his mind that this was not a levee, but a mountain. No matter how big the flood was, it could not break open such a levee. At most, it could overflow from the top of the mountain.
The embankment at that time was far away from the lake. Ma Shengming clearly remembered that he saw several shepherd boys leaving cattle to graze by the lake while he played in the water. When Magistrate Ma, who had been studying for more than 20 years, stood on the embankment and looked over, the few shepherd boys were like ink dots in an ink painting, which evoked only poetry.
Of course, the poetry has long since disappeared. From the night he returned to the county seat, the rain kept coming and going. Hongze Lake, which was quiet and gentle half a month ago, now looks like a giant dragon rolling over and rolling at the bottom of the lake, bringing up rows of huge turbid yellow waves, which slap directly on the embankment.
Ma Shengming, who has been living and eating on the embankment these days, watched helplessly as the lake water came over from a distance, tens of feet a day, and it rushed to the embankment in just ten days. The two-foot tall willow tree that originally took root under the embankment was now invisible, and was no longer in the roaring lake water that was floating with white foam.
He wiped the rain off his face and continued to patrol the embankment with a sullen face. Seeing that he didn't go back, Tian Zhixing had no choice but to follow behind, cursing: "God, it rains so heavily in autumn, it's just a mischief!"
Before he finished speaking, as if in answer to his curse, there was a rumble from the depths of Hongze Lake, lightning filled the dark sky, and then bursts of thunder rolled over.
Tian Zhixing's ears suddenly perked up. He had clearly heard the sound of gongs coming along with the thunder.
The thunder was far away and the gong sounded. Ma Shengming also heard it, just in front of them, with a sense of panic, faintly transmitted through the rain curtain.
Ma Shengming quickly ordered: "Quick! Everyone gather forward!" The commanders of the forts who followed him quickly ran back in the rain, calling for their young men to gather over there.
...
As Ma Shengming ran, he heard the sound of the gong becoming clearer and clearer. He was running so fast that he suddenly slipped and fell to the ground, where he was chewing mud. The relatives around him hurriedly helped him up. Ma Shengming didn't care about the mud and water on his body, got up and continued running.
After running for half an hour, Ma Shengming, who was almost out of breath, finally saw someone beating a gong outside the foot of the embankment in front of him. At his feet was a gurgling pipe with water. Looking down from the embankment, he couldn't tell how big the pipe was.
Looking carefully, there was no river outside the gong. Instead, there was a woman covered in patches, beating the gong anxiously and crying.
When Ma Shengming was sliding down the embankment, he suddenly saw a clay figure jumping out of the gushing mud. The clay figure wiped his face and shouted something at the woman. The woman playing the gong was at a loss what to do. She dropped the gong and reached out to grab him.
The clay figure opened the woman's hand, stretched out his hands and feet, and threw himself there as if trying to block the gurgling torrent with his body.
Ma Shengming let out a cry from his throat and rolled down the slope. Before he could get up, he saw another scene that he would never forget:
The woman bent down, picked up the gong, struck it twice, and looked around blankly. Seeing Ma Shengming and others running over in the rain, she dropped the gong again.
She tugged on the skirt of her clothes, wiped her face, and shouted, "Master!" Jumped in from that pipe!
Tian Zhixing, who was next to Magistrate Ma, shouted, "Hou Er, Hou Er's family!" come out faster! With a cry in his throat, he rushed forward while rolling and crawling.
The strong government servants beside Magistrate Ma also rushed over, and everyone surrounded the pipe and shouted wildly. But all he could see was that the water flow like yellow mud soup had become smaller. A man used a shovel to poke five or six feet into it, but he couldn't find anyone.
Tian Zhixing wiped the tears and rain off his face and yelled, "There is a whirlpool inside and you can't fish it out!" Fill it in quickly, otherwise these two will die in vain!
Ma Shengming could swear to God that he had never experienced such an emotion: that day, he used a shovel he had never touched before, and dozens of men following him, while choking, he filled in a shovelful of soil and swallowed it. In the throes of losing two lives...
...
Since the birth of Chinese civilization, the struggle against floods has been engraved in the bones and souls of the Chinese people. The three great rivers, the Yellow River, the Huaihe River, and the Yangtze River, have nurtured the nation, but at the same time, throughout the history of civilization, they have also brought serious disasters to the Chinese people who have lived there.
During the war between the Song and Jin Dynasties, Du Chong, who stayed in Tokyo in the Northern Song Dynasty, broke the river in Huaxian County, Henan Province in order to prevent the Jin soldiers from going south. This river crossing changed not only the war situation between the Song and Jin countries, but also the entire Chinese nation - Three large rivers, which have had considerable management experience since the Qin and Han Dynasties, are in a mess.
Before the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yellow River had a separate channel that entered the sea in Hebei, and the Huaihe River also entered the sea alone. But after Duchong cut off the river, the Yellow River flowed southward and took away the channel of the Huaihe River. This was known in history as "Diverting the Yellow River to Seize the Huaihe River".
Because the Yellow River is high and the Huaihe River is low, after the Huanghuai River merges, the Huaihe River water cannot compete with the Yellow River. The sediment brought by the Yellow River accumulates year by year, causing the two rivers to flood almost every year. The domino effect triggered by Du Chong eventually formed a series of lakes, including Hongze Lake at the confluence of the Huanghuai River, and eventually caused the Huaihe River, which had its own outlet to the sea, to become a tributary of the Yangtze River.
Now, the three major rivers, which originally had their own drainage basins, formed a complex situation of interconnected water potentials, doubling the difficulty of water control for the Chinese nation. After the early Ming Dynasty, the Grand Canal ran through these river basins, and the imperial court's water control idea of securing water transportation increased the difficulty of water management by several orders of magnitude.
Therefore, Zhu Yijun chose the sea-cao system instead of the river-cao system. This was not only a financial hemorrhage and the need to revitalize Jiangnan, but also the only choice to completely control the floods. Yes, there was no other way to completely cure the floods that had ravaged the Ming Dynasty for nearly two hundred years. Pan Jixun led water conservancy experts from across the country to investigate for a year and came to the final conclusion: water transportation could only be abandoned!
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