The Prosperous Era of Longwan

After Spain became a local tyrant by controlling the world's major silver mines, Britain, unwilling to be outdone, stood up to oppose it and introduced the "Gold Standard Act" to make gold the mainstream of the world.

It was this decision of Britain that accidentally kicked off the era of gold.

When Britain wanted to challenge the world's powers in the financial field, a large number of gold mines were suddenly discovered in California, USA, which set off the "gold rush" that was booming at that time.

After 1848, the annual output of gold in the United States soared from 43,000 ounces to 3 million ounces. A lot of gold appeared out of thin air in the world, and Britain, which happened to like to call itself the empire on which the sun never sets, also promoted the gold standard in a bunch of colonies including Australia, South Africa, and Canada. Gold began to gradually gain a lot of status in economics.

However, France was the first to stand up and express opposition to the gold standard at this time.

At that time, Napoleon III, who was determined to restore the European hegemony of the First French Empire, felt that the gold and silver bimetallic standard he used was the best system in the world, and he wanted to make his family franc the world currency, and at the same time he wanted to go against Britain by the way.

However, taking too big a step can easily lead to failure. France was really incompetent and ended up with nothing.

In order to dominate Europe, France began to provoke the Kingdom of Prussia, which was completing the great cause of German unification, which was the "Franco-Prussian War". Then the arrogant France lost. After the defeat, France not only weakened its economy due to the cession of territory and indemnity, but also made France give Europe's hegemony to Germany. Moreover, because Germany took 200 million pounds of French gold, Germany also began to join the gold standard army.

The two major European countries chose the gold standard system because they held a large amount of gold, and other countries were also affected, which accelerated the pace of the European gold standard. Gold began to replace silver smoothly.

On the other side of the ocean, the United States did not have so many troubles, because there were many mines at home, whether it was gold or silver mines.

However, internally, there was a fierce competition between gold and silver mine owners.

With the general trend in Europe already established, the United States gradually abandoned the silver standard and leaned towards the gold standard system.

However, even so, in order to make up for the losses of silver mine owners, the US Treasury would still regularly buy large amounts of silver as reserves.

Because of the reparations for a war, the gold standard took off. Wei Guangde could not have imagined this.

"It is better to govern the river with the river than to govern it with people.

The river is impatient. If you use its nature and use its power, it can be shallow or deep. The method of governance is in my hands.

If you want to deepen the north, then the dike in the south will make the north deeper; if you want to deepen the south, then the dike in the north will make the south deeper; if you want to deepen the middle, then the north and south dikes will bind them together, and the middle will be deep.

This is to use its nature and use its power. The merit is due to people."

At this time, Wei Guangde really read the memorial of Wan Gong, the prime minister of the river. Wan Gong completed the dredging of the Jingmi Canal a few years ago, so the court sent him to Nanzhili to work with Jiang Zhi to control the Yellow River.

Jiang Zhi's task was of course mainly to dig the Jia Canal, while Wan Gong was to govern the Yellow River.

The memorial in Wei Guangde's hand was a plan for controlling the Yellow River proposed by Wan Gong. It proposed the principle of governing according to the nature of water, following the general trend of the river channel, and adapting to local conditions, which effectively guided the implementation of the Yellow River control project.

"Bundle the north and south dikes to attack the central stronghold?"

Wei Guangde frowned when he saw this paragraph.

Wei Guangde understood the meaning of the words, which was to tighten the river channel and use the force of water to impact the silt at the bottom of the riverbed, so as to achieve the purpose of silting and flood control.

What he didn't understand was that this seemed to be the magical method of binding water and attacking sand mentioned on the Internet in later generations.

However, Wei Guangde didn't think that binding water and attacking sand could really control the Yellow River.

Although in theory, "binding water and attacking sand" can effectively reduce the river disasters of the Yellow River, the water flow in reality cannot completely carry away all the silt, and there will always be a part of it that settles down and finally silts up.

Planting trees upstream? Reduce soil erosion?

An idea came to Wei Guangde's mind.

Let Wan Gong continue to manage the Yellow River, and let him be responsible for afforestation in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, the reason is to reduce the amount of sediment flowing into the Yellow River due to rain.

However, at this time, Wei Guangde suddenly had another idea, that is, to build reservoirs in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River to store water.

It is said that there is a lot of sand in the Yellow River. Where does the sand come from?

It is not brought by precipitation. After the heavy rain, a huge water flow gathers to carry the sediment.

If the water volume in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River is not so large, for example, some reservoirs are built in the middle and upper reaches to store water during the rainy season in the Yellow River Basin, will the sediment transported to the middle and lower reaches be less?

You know, the main source of sediment in the Yellow River is actually in the middle reaches, and the harm is reflected in the lower reaches.

The rainfall in the middle reaches cannot be controlled, but the upper reaches can be properly controlled.

To build a huge reservoir with water storage like in the future is a bit difficult for the current Ming Dynasty's technical capabilities, but Wei Guangde thought of the future The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River are specially designated as flood storage areas, that is, using low-lying areas to store excess floods that exceed the safe discharge of the river.

As long as the amount of water in the Yellow River can be controlled within a certain range, water storage can not only solve the agricultural water use in the northwest region, but may also be beneficial to the downstream.

The total amount of sediment transported by the Yellow River each year is not fixed, but is determined by quantity.

If there is less water, the amount of sediment transported will be reduced, and the siltation caused will naturally be less serious.

At this time, unknowingly, Wei Guangde has begun to consider the flood problem in the Yellow River Basin with the eyes of later generations.

Planting trees in the middle reaches to reduce soil erosion and restore the purity of the Yellow River, Haiyan and other rivers is just the conjecture of so-called experts.

The huge amount of sediment carried by the Yellow River is not so much caused by soil erosion. In Wei Guangde's opinion, the fundamental reason lies in the deserts and Gobis in the northwest. Every year, the sediment carried by the northwest wind accumulates there, and part of it is carried away by the water flow. It has something to do with soil erosion but not much.

Can deserts and Gobi be controlled?

Later generations will not be able to do it, let alone the Ming Dynasty now.

The diversion method used by the ancients was actually a clever way to reduce sediment in the river, but the sediment was always there.

The water-confining sand attack method proposed by Wang Gong seems to be suitable for use in the lower reaches, but the biggest problem of the Yellow River is still in the middle reaches. Is it also possible to build a flood storage area?

It's not impossible to create a flood storage area, but I'm afraid it will take a few years to change the location, and we still have to keep changing.

Because the sediment brought by each flood storage will raise the location there, eventually it will be impossible to store water.

Wei Guangde patted his forehead. Although the Yellow River gave birth to Chinese civilization, it also brought a lot of trouble to Chinese civilization.

During the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, people were constantly migrating in the face of floods. The Shang Dynasty seemed to have changed capitals several times, probably to avoid the impact of floods.

river, yellow river

Before the Qin and Han Dynasties, people usually called the Yellow River "river". If a river was added in front of it, it often did not refer to the Yellow River, but to other rivers.

That is to say, the name of the Yellow River appeared during the Qin and Han Dynasties, and it has been handed down since then.

However, this does not mean that the Yellow River was not "yellow" before the Qin Dynasty. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Yellow River was actually turbid and was already a "yellow river", but the ancients did not add color at that time.

Therefore, it is nonsense to say that deforestation and land reclamation caused the water of the Yellow River to turn yellow.

After thinking a lot, Wei Guangde simply took out another piece of paper and wrote a special document. It was not a draft, but intended to be sent to Wang Gong. After all, he was the prime minister of Hedao, and his first priority was to control the epidemic.

Write your thoughts to Wan Gong and let him make his own decisions.

As for his memorial, Wei Guangde was a little hesitant and didn't know how to draft it.

During his hesitation, Wei Guangde simply put the memorial aside and did not plan the vote for the time being. He planned to discuss with Zhang Juzheng and Lu Tiaoyang later to see if Wang Gong could try it out and see the effect.

Time flew by in the afternoon, and Zhang Juzheng sent someone to ask Wei Guangde to come over.

Wei Guangde picked up Wan Gong's memorial and walked out of the duty room. He just asked Lu Bu to pack up the duty room at the door, and sent the approved memorial to Zhongshu for registration and then sent it to the palace.

After entering the first assistant's duty room, Lu Tiaoyang came over first.

Obviously, he didn't have many memorials in his hands today, or they were relatively simple memorials that were easy to give instructions on.

After saluting the two of them, Wei Guangde sat on the left side of Zhang Juzheng and sat opposite Lu Tiaoyang on the right side.

After a few words of greeting, Wei Guangde handed over Wan Gong's memorial and said: "This is the memorial written by Wan Gong, Prime Minister of Hedao. It involves the matter of controlling Huang. Please read it before talking."

Wei Guangde couldn't elaborate, so he handed the memorial directly to Zhang Juzheng.

After Zhang Juzheng looked through it, he saw that Wei Guangde's ticket was not there and gave him a puzzled look.

Generally speaking, even if they are undecided, cabinet ministers will write a draft to express their attitude, but Wei Guangde did not express it in this memorial, which seems to indicate that he is somewhat dissatisfied with Wang Gong's memorial.

But that's not right. Wang Gong, the Prime Minister of Hedao, is a fellow countryman of Wei Guangde. I haven't heard of any conflict between him and Wang Gong.

Zhang Juzheng put down his thoughts and carefully read Wan Gong's memorial. He did not hand it to Lu Tiaoyang, but lowered his head and thought about it.

After a while, I realized that I seemed to have lost my composure, so I quickly handed the memorial to Lu Tiaoyang and asked him to read it too.

"Shandai, what do you think?"

After Zhang Juzheng handed over the memorial, he looked at Wei Guangde and asked.

“The ideas are very innovative, but I always feel like they don’t really solve the problem.”

Wei Guangde said bluntly, "He wants to use water to flush out the sediment accumulated in the river. It can only be said that part of it can be washed away, but some will still be left. Over the years, the river will still be blocked sooner or later.

I don't think this method will be very effective in regulating the Yellow River.

Another particularly bad aspect of using water to attack sand is that it narrows the water channel. If the water volume increases sharply during heavy rains, it can easily cause the Yellow River to burst, and then get out of hand.

In fact, the current management of the Yellow River is basically about protecting the Yellow River or ensuring transportation. From the perspective of the imperial court, it is natural to hope to keep the canal open and not be disturbed by the Yellow River, but in fact it is very difficult. "

Having said this, Wei Guangde took out the official document he had drafted from his sleeve, handed it to Zhang Juzheng, and said: "This is the Yellow River management method I thought of after reading this memorial. It's just some ideas. I plan to let Wan Gong take a look, but I don't know. Is it useful for regulating the Yellow River?

After all, I have never treated water before, so I don’t know the pros and cons.

Experts in water control can only be found in the Ministry of Industry. When the time comes, let these experts take a look, and maybe it will inspire them. "

"Oh, let me see."

Zhang Juzheng actually didn't know much about water control. He didn't take over the errands in this area and left them all to the Ministry of Works.

But when he heard that Wei Guangde had some ideas about treating Huang, he directly took the letter from Wei Guangde and looked down at it carefully.

Lu Tiaoyang on the other side naturally listened to the conversation between the two.

He had already read Wan Gong's memorial, and he had similar thoughts to Wei Guangde's. It was hard to say whether this method would work.

"Good loan."

Lu Tiaoyang said to Wei Guangde.

"Brother Heqing, please tell me if you have anything to say."

Wei Guangde cupped his hands to Lu Tiaoyang and said.

"Since Wan Gong wrote this memorial, I think he intends to try this method."

Lu Tiaoyang said.

"Yes, he reported this method, but he only said that he was following the advice of a scholar, and did not say who the scholar was. In fact, he wanted to protect him from being criticized by the court."

Wei Guangde could naturally see that Wan Gong should actually have a positive attitude towards this method of beaming water.

If he couldn't convince himself, he would definitely not play.

"I think Mr. Wan has considered the concerns you mentioned before, but he didn't elaborate on them in the memorial."

Lu Tiaoyang continued.

"Oh, does Brother Heqing support the trial of this method?"

Wei Guangde heard it, and Lu Tiaoyang seemed to support Wan Gong trying this method of attacking sand with a beam of water.

Lu Tiaoyang nodded and smiled: "As you just said, he is an expert in water control, and his concerns should be deeper than ours."

Hearing this, Wei Guangde nodded as if he had suddenly realized something, with a look of great agreement on his face.

"We will set up flood storage areas along the Yellow River to release floodwaters."

At this time, Zhang Juzheng had already roughly read Wei Guangde's ideas and seemed to have some ideas about setting up a flood storage area.

When Wei Guangde and Lu Tiaoyang looked at Zhang Juzheng, they saw that he thought for a moment before asking: "Is this the method you came up with based on the many large and small lakes along the Yangtze River?

Although the idea is good, the Yellow River is different from the Yangtze River after all. There is not so much sediment there.

If you want to store water through lakes along the Yellow River, you may not be able to use it after a flood. "

"There is no other way. When the Yellow River floods, it is actually caused by a sudden increase in rain. If we can't find a way to divert the water, the sediment carried to the downstream will be even more harmful.

I actually know that the previous diversion methods used to control the Yellow River had similar considerations, but they mostly diverted water downstream to release floods, but what I wanted was to store water in the upper and middle reaches. "

Wei Guangde said that he was different from previous methods of controlling Huang, “In my opinion, controlling Huang requires not only controlling water, but also controlling land.

"Guoyu·Zhou Yuxia" In the 23rd year of King Ling, Prince Jin admonished: "In ancient times, the long-standing people did not fall into the mountains, did not worship the burrows, did not guard against the rivers, and did not build the rivers. Fushan is the gathering of soil; "Tou" refers to the return of things; "Chuan" refers to the guide of Qi; "Zhe" refers to the bell (gathering) of water."

The land of Shanshan is not like the inland. Although there are mountains and rivers, there are lush grass and forests. It is said that it is bare and like a land of loess. Heavy rains wash away the mountains and carry away the sediment into the Yellow River, dyeing the big river with color.

In my opinion, since we want to control yellow soil, we should start from the upstream, control the water volume first, and store water to irrigate the fertile soil upstream.

In the middle reaches, vegetation is planted along the river in the hope of protecting the soil. At the same time, Shanxi encourages tree planting and prohibits deforestation.

The ancients knew not to fall down the mountain, let alone today. "