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While the people in Beijing were anxious about the grassland war, the Huaihe River area was plunged into tension.

Since the beginning of winter last year, the weather in Henan, Anhui and other places has been extremely abnormal. It either doesn't rain for ten days and a half, or it rains heavily.

Logically speaking, March is the time when spring rain is as expensive as oil, but in the eyes of Jiangsu people, this oil is too much.

The entire Yellow River is actually in danger.

Everyone in the world knows about the tragedy of Kaifeng being flooded by dikes, but few know that the Southern Song Dynasty was the main culprit of the erosion of the Huaihai Sea.

In the winter of the second year of Jianyan in the Southern Song Dynasty (1128), in order to prevent the Jin soldiers from advancing southward, Song generals and Duchong, who stayed behind in Tokyo, opened the south embankment of the Yellow River and entered Zhusi from Si. The main stream of the Yellow River moved southward, beginning a 700-year-long flood

The Huai River seizes the flow of the Huai River into the sea.

Large tracts of fertile fields were buried by quicksand, fertile lands were generally salinized, lakes and rivers were silted up, and water accumulated with no outlet, creating a series of new lakes, causing the originally developed agricultural economy here to plummet.

You must know that the Huaihai Plain is the birthplace of the Liu Bang Group and the place where Cao Cao started. Since the Southern Song Dynasty, it has become a world of saline-alkali land.

Huaibei and Huainan are completely two different places.

The Ming Dynasty regulated the Huang and Huaihe Rivers with the purpose of protecting the canal. In other words, his purpose was not for the land, but to protect the canal transportation.

Therefore, from the beginning, his strategy was biased and was of no benefit to the people who suffered from the Huanghuai disaster.

For example, Suqian had 8,700 hectares of official and civilian land during the Wanli period, but only 6,000 hectares during the Tianqi period.

In addition, due to the continuous raising of the Hongze Lake embankment, most of the farmland in Wuhe, Sizhou, Qinghe, Taoxian, and Hongxian counties sank to the bottom of the water. By 1680 in history, the city of Sizhou sank directly.

The irrigation system was destroyed, resulting in poor drainage and saline-alkali land, making the land barren and impoverished. Coupled with frequent river construction projects, people fled.

The economy of the vast plains covering thousands of miles from eastern Henan, southern Shandong, northern Jiangsu, and northern Anhui has continued to decline and has become a burden to each province.

At this time, the governor of Jiangsu stood at the head of Pizhou City, and the Yellow River in the distance was shocking.

The turbulent Yellow River water did not change its rolling yellow color even when it reached Jiangsu. It swallowed up everything along the way, whether they were humans, sheep, livestock, cattle, ghosts, gods, or snakes, and then headed south.

Carrying all the dirty things, he headed for the Huaihe River.

Thinking of the narrow channel of the Huaihe River that would be so squeezed, the governor of Jiangsu felt like he had a headache.

"Can we still live peacefully this summer?"

The governor muttered.

The chief envoy on the side sighed: "It's difficult, it's difficult, it's difficult——"

"It's so hard to bear the spring rain, let alone the summer rain?"

"If this Yellow Dragon is in chaos, our Xuzhou, Haizhou, Suzhou, and Huai'an will all be in chaos," the governor said thoughtfully.

"Anhui is not safe either. What if the Huaihe River leaks?"

"How much silver is left in reserve?" the governor suddenly asked.

"Less than two million yuan." The chief envoy was stunned: "Not many were affected by the disaster last year, but there was still a lot saved."

"Recruit civilians to repair the river embankment first."

The governor turned his head and said seriously: "This embankment cannot collapse during your and my tenure. It must last until next year at least!"

"That's right -" the Chief Minister suddenly realized that his term of office would be over next year. He gritted his teeth and said, "I will go and prepare 500,000 silver coins and recruit 100,000 civilians..."

At this moment, an official with mud on his legs and clothes soaked by the rain walked up.

Hearing the last sentence, he sighed: "Futai, Fantai, the most important thing now is not to build river embankments, but to build small rivers and dredge waterways -"

The person who came was a doctor from the Ministry of Industry, who was responsible for the management of the Huaihe River.

"The Huaihe River is not as important as the Yellow River." The two men turned their heads and emphasized with bright eyes.

"No, despite the turbulent Yellow River, the dams are safe, but the Huaihe River has a huge amount of water. Once it squeezes into the waterway with the Yellow River, Huai'an Prefecture will be in danger."

"Hongze Lake is a suspended lake on the ground——"

When the two of them heard this, they immediately felt that it made sense. If Huai'an Mansion was flooded, things would be very serious.

Seeing this, the doctor breathed a sigh of relief.

In the past few years, the imperial court has assigned the Ministry of Industry to repair the Huaihe River and the Yellow River. What the Ministry of Industry most often does is to build polder banks on both sides of the Yellow and Huaihe Rivers.

Drain the stagnant water and expand the polders.

In the past few years, Dangwei, Hewei, and Huwei have taken root on both sides of the Huaihe River. A large amount of land has been reused, and the area of ​​cultivated land has increased.

The economy has recovered and the population has gradually returned, allowing the Ministry of Industry to manage the Huaihe River area and gain local praise.

People are also willing to help.

Achievements were made quickly and the situation opened up, so the Ministry of Industry's annual financial allocation was never delayed.
Chapter completed!