The Prosperous Era of Longwan

"Is this the Yellow River map?"

In the backyard of the Ministry of Works, a winding ditch made of sand and stones appeared in the eyes of Zhang Juzheng and Wei Guangde.

But it was not them who spoke, but Zhang Siwei, the Grand Secretary of the Dongge.

Zhang Siwei was from Puzhou County, Pingyang Prefecture, Shanxi Province, so he naturally had different feelings for this great river flowing through Shanxi.

In fact, it was not that Zhang Siwei had not seen the Yellow River in Shanxi. The whole muddy water was indeed very shocking.

After all, the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River almost flow on the Loess Plateau, and this is precisely the place where soil erosion is most serious, which directly dyes the water of the Yellow River.

The "J"-shaped river channel of the Yellow River on the Loess Plateau is easier to identify, and Zhang Siwei even roughly judged the approximate location of Shanxi on the map.

"How do you verify it?"

Zhang Siwei was very excited to see the Yellow River map, but Wei Guangde and Zhang Juzheng did not feel that way. After all, the place where they grew up was close to the Yangtze River.

Well, it is quite far away from the Yellow River.

Even if you pass by the Yellow River when entering the capital, you will not feel anything about this muddy yellow river water.

However, the Yellow River is really the mother river for the people along the way, because there is the water source they need for survival.

Although most people in the Yellow River basin may drink well water or tributary river water, it is precisely because of the flow of this big river that the Yellow River water that penetrates into the ground replenishes the groundwater level, allowing them to pump water from their wells.

The Yellow River is the mother river of the northern land, and it deserves its name.

However, the purpose of the three cabinet ministers coming this time is naturally not to see what the Yellow River looks like, but to come with a strong purpose, that is, they want to see the experiments conducted by the Ministry of Industry on the Yellow River with their own eyes.

It must be admitted that the sand table made by the Ministry of Industry is very delicate, not only the Yellow River channel, but even the small river channels along the way are made.

The weir mouth is also made into a square shape, which is convenient for blocking with stones.

"This is a sand table made by Lei Shangshu, the then Minister of Works, in the 43rd year of Jiajing. At that time, the Yellow River flood recurred and became more and more serious.

It was he who proposed the method of using sand table models to experiment with water control. Now we are just constantly correcting the surrounding terrain, hoping to use this as a basis for judgment."

Today, all the cabinet members came to the Ministry of Works. Zhu Heng, the Minister of Works, still came. Although the power has been transferred to Jiang Zhi, this occasion still needs him, the nominal Minister of Works, to preside over it.

"The river will regularly measure the amount of water and sand in the Yellow River and report it to the river government and the Ministry of Works. Based on this, we can roughly estimate the situation of the river and restore it."

Wei Guangde already knew that Zhu Heng still looked down on the "water-restraining and sand-attack method" proposed by Pan Jixun, believing that the consequences would be very bad and even lead to a disaster.

This is actually the reason why he came here today.

It can only be said that the joint efforts with Pan Jixun to control floods in the 44th year of Jiajing really disgusted him. The struggle between the two people has penetrated into his bones. Even if he accepted Zhang Juzheng's re-employment of Pan Jixun for flood control, prejudice still exists.

"According to the figures reported by the river channel, we will weigh the water and sand, mix them and pour them into the river channel, observe the sedimentation of the river sand, and finally drain the water and weigh the river sand in the river channel, so that we can roughly estimate the effect."

Jiang Zhi obviously did not preside over such a test for the first time, and he was still very familiar with the process.

In fact, making models for testing was very common in ancient times.

The major projects presided over by the Ministry of Works were mainly the construction of palaces and imperial mausoleums. These would first draw drawings and then make wooden models. The Ministry of Works would not start construction until the emperor approved them.

However, river engineering is more complicated, and large models are difficult to restore.

Therefore, although the Ministry of Works produced the "Yellow River Map", it rarely circulated the news to the outside world.

If Jiang Zhi had not said that the Ministry of Works had conducted many tests when he met Wei Guangde, Wei Guangde would not have known that the Ministry of Works had this thing.

He came here because of curiosity, wanting to see the overall appearance of the Yellow River in this era.

In later generations, such sand tables of the Yellow River are rare, but maps can be easily searched, or even satellite maps can be used to understand the overall picture.

However, the Yellow River had changed its course at that time, and it no longer flows into the sea through Xuhuai.

Zhang Juzheng, like Zhang Siwei, slowly paced around the sand table and observed the terrain of the Yellow River, and was not in a hurry to ask the Ministry of Works to demonstrate.

Wei Guangde's attention was more focused on the lower reaches of the Yellow River, that is, the Xuhuai section, where the river channel was obviously higher than the surrounding ground and was in an uplifted state.

"Is the Yellow River channel so obvious?"

Wei Guangde pointed to this section and asked suspiciously.

"The actual terrain is slightly flatter, but it is almost the same after shrinking."

Jiang Zhi said.

Wei Guangde nodded slightly. When he arrived at the site, he might not feel the protrusion of the Yellow River channel, but after shrinking into a sand table, it would definitely be different.

After all, human vision is limited, which is why so many people in later generations like to play with drones. The feeling of looking down at the earth from a high altitude is completely unattainable on the ground.

And now they feel the same when they look at the sand table.

After Zhang Juzheng finished looking at the sand table, he smiled and said to Zhu Heng: "We don't understand these either, so please ask Lord Zhu to arrange for them to demonstrate. '

"Okay, please wait for a moment."

Zhu Heng immediately ordered Jiang Zhi to start weighing water and sand according to the Yellow River data reported by the river channel recently.

Jiang Zhi began to arrange people to weigh and prepare for the demonstration, when Wei Guangde suddenly asked: "Brother Shinan, is there any particularity in weighing the water and sand of the Yellow River, such as predicting the weather?"

Wei Guangde vaguely remembered that there seemed to be such a scene in a TV series he had watched in later generations.

It was a Qing Dynasty palace drama, which seemed to be called "The World's Granary". The Qing soldiers had special soldiers responsible for taking water and weighing it, and judging whether there was a flood or drought disaster based on this.

After hearing Wei Guangde's question, Zhu Heng only thought about it for a while and understood what he meant.

"Shan Dai should have read miscellaneous books or heard from old farmers."

"I don't remember."

Wei Guangde shook his head to indicate that he couldn't remember Zhu Heng's words.

"This is true, but it is not a prediction, but a judgment of the current situation.

There are similar sayings in the countryside, such as "If the water in the late autumn weighs one penny, the drought will last until the middle of August", which actually means weighing water.

Judgment of whether a drought has occurred based on the weight of water.

Take the water of the Yellow River as an example. The heavier a pot of water is, the more sand it contains in the river water, which means more rain.

If the water is light, it means the less sand it contains, which means the weather is relatively dry and there may be a drought.

In the past, the river government would also observe the changes in the late autumn and autumn water, but now it is not done much.

After all, disaster management is not within the scope of the river government's responsibilities, and the local government is responsible."

Zhu Heng's words were very simple, but Wei Guangde still guessed the official trick. It should be that the river channel reported this in the past, which aroused the dissatisfaction of local officials, so they stopped being "bad guys" later.

In ancient times, some officials would really lie about disasters for their own selfishness.

Wei Guangde understood a little bit. According to what Zhu Heng said, he could also roughly understand the so-called scientific reason for weighing water.

First, the weight of the Yellow River water per unit volume can reflect the specific gravity of the sand in the water. If the water is heavy, it means that the Yellow River water contains a lot of sand. On the contrary, if it is light, it means that the sand content has decreased.

Secondly, the amount of sand content is affected by the flow rate and flow rate. If the flow rate is large, the flow rate is fast. If the flow rate is fast, the river water has a strong erosion force on the area it flows through, and more sand is transported.

Thirdly, the amount of flow is subject to rainfall. If the rainfall is large, the river is replenished more, so the flow rate increases. On the contrary, if the rainfall is small, the river flow is small.

Finally, it can be inferred that because the water weight representing the month becomes lighter month by month, it means that the sand content has decreased, and then it means that the rainfall has decreased, indicating that there may be a drought. On the contrary, it means that there is a lot of precipitation, so more sand is carried away, and the water is naturally heavy.

"So, weighing the water, especially the weight of Fushui and Qiushui, should be able to roughly estimate whether the grain output in the Yellow River Basin has increased or decreased?"

Wei Guangde hesitated and asked again.

This time, Zhu Heng thought for a moment before answering: "It may not be accurate, but it does make sense."

"Then let the river channel know, and we will take water and weigh it regularly in the future and report it to the cabinet."

Zhang Juzheng, who was standing next to him, should not have known about this. Now that he heard the conversation between Wei Guangde and Jiang Zhi, he knew that there was still this method to predict the grain harvest, so he naturally became interested and immediately asked the river channel office to resume this work.

Wei Guangde actually wanted to ask if it could be used to predict the weather next year, but he thought it was impossible.

It is already very good to know the approximate results of summer grain and autumn harvest that year by weighing water.

After all, in ancient times, grain production was crucial to a dynasty.

In the annual taxes of the Ming Dynasty, grain was still the most important part, and the in-kind taxes were too much.

Of course, it cannot be said that this is not good.

A very important change in Zhang Juzheng's reform was to convert some in-kind taxes into silver, which did increase the court's fiscal revenue on the surface, but correspondingly, with more silver, the court had less grain to allocate.

There are gains and losses, and perhaps this was also a factor in Emperor Wanli's later overthrow of Zhang Juzheng's reform.

Wei Guangde naturally had different opinions on this.

In fact, the two people argued about this many times in private.

Although the reform envisioned by Zhang Juzheng did not completely abolish the in-kind tax, it only changed most of the taxes to silver, but some areas continued to collect in-kind taxes, such as the land tax in Suzhou and Hangzhou, which was still collected in kind for the royal family to eat.

This reform has alleviated the transportation burden of farmers to a certain extent, but it has also led to the concentration of silver in the hands of merchants, increasing the space for merchants to exploit farmers.

That is why Wei Guangde bluntly proposed that it would be fine for Jiangxi and Nanzhili to act in this way, but what would be the result if the whole world of the Ming Dynasty did so?

In order to pay taxes, the people could only sell the harvested grain to the merchants in exchange for copper coins, and then in exchange for silver, and finally pay taxes to the court.

In the harvest season, the people collectively sold grain, and the grain price would be so low.

Wei Guangde clearly remembered the lesson about buying grain that he read when he was a child. He thought that he could sell more grain to improve his family's life after a good harvest, but when he transported the grain to the city, he found that the grain price had plummeted.

It can be said that with such a reform, the farmers would not only have a hard time making ends meet in years of famine, but even in years of good harvest, it would be difficult to get enough money and grain.

Wei Guangde's words at that time reminded Zhang Juzheng that he had been thinking about the adjustments that needed to be made to the Single Whip Law in the past few days.

At the very least, Wei Guangde required a dual-track system. For "taxes", farmers could choose to pay taxes in kind or in silver.

It was only "labor" that had to be paid in silver.

At this time, Jiang Zhi was also ready. After Zhang Juzheng gave an order, more than ten officials took golden bottles of different sizes and began to pour water into the Yellow River.

The mouths of these golden bottles can be adjusted to accommodate different amounts of water.

As the yellow water poured into the river, it soon flowed downstream to the place representing Xu Huai.

The weighed water continued to gather in the river and gradually filled the river.

"Is this Hongze Lake?"

Seeing a puddle of clear water, Wei Guangde pointed and asked.

In fact, the big lake on the Yellow River is not as big as the Yangtze River. It seems that there is only such a lake.

In fact, Hongze Lake did not exist originally. It was purely artificially created because of the existence of Gaojiayan.

"Yes, the bluestone over there has been blocked, and it will be removed when the river is flushed."

Zhu Heng also explained to Wei Guangde, Zhang Juzheng and others.

On Jiang Zhi's side, he kept directing the Ministry of Works to pour water into the river. The mud and sand in the water were visible to the naked eye.

For the middle and lower reaches, the focus of observation is naturally, but what catches the eye at this time is a layer of silt at the bottom of the river.

However, relatively speaking, the water volume is still sufficient at this time, so the sedimentation of silt is acceptable.

However, in the lower reaches, with the emergence of two river sections representing the canal, the water volume of the river decreases, and from this section, the silt deposited increases significantly.

Seeing this, everyone understands that the reason for the increasing number of floods in the Yellow River is the evil result of replenishing water to the canal.

Otherwise, the lower reaches should be the same as the middle reaches, with only some silt deposited, and there will definitely not be a large amount of silt deposited as it is now.

Later, when the water-binding and sand-attacking method began to be demonstrated, some officials took away the bluestone representing Gaojiayan, and the water injected into Hongze Lake quickly left the lower reaches of the Yellow River.

Although some of the surface silt deposited was taken away, there was still a lot of silt at the bottom of the river, and most of the silt taken away did not rush out, but accumulated near the mouth of the Yellow River.

When the water in the puddle representing Hongze Lake gradually dried up, the bluestone was put down again, which also indicated the start of a new round of water storage.

"Just now, a cycle was completed. Such demonstrations will be carried out several times or even dozens of times."

Zhu Heng explained on the side.

"Does one time represent one year?"

Zhang Siwei interrupted and asked.

"That's about it.

But in actual operation, it depends on the situation. If the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River cause floods, the gates will also be opened to release water to flush the Yellow River."

Zhu Heng explained.

Although only the first cycle was carried out, both Wei Guangde and Zhang Juzheng had actually noticed that the river section near Huai'an in the lower reaches had obvious yellow sand accumulation.

After Zhu Heng found out, he said: "This is also what Cen Zhushi and others said. The siltation in the middle and lower reaches will cause the slope of the river to decrease, and the silt will eventually be blocked near the lower estuary.

In the long run, this place will be flooded all year round.

It is mainly caused by the reduction of water volume in the Yellow River and Huai River due to the transportation of goods. If the canal is abandoned, the situation may improve." (End of this chapter)