A day before Li Su arrived in Bowang County, Chen Dao, who had just been transferred to Li Su's side in recent months, was leading hundreds of horses in advance and galloping along the avenue from Wancheng to Bowang County.

He was carrying out a escort mission, setting the way for Li Su's itinerary in advance, clearing out possible bandits along the way, and notifying the local area to do a good job in reception and when to welcome him.

It is normal for leaders to have people standing in front of the front when they travel.

Li Su is not as friendly as a person to the point of raiding and visiting, and his private life is still relatively luxurious. Every time he goes to a place, he must eat, drink and live well, so that his mind can have better office efficiency, which is also for the sake of the country's great cause.

There is nothing to pretend about in this regard.

Seeing that Bowang County was right in front, Chen Dao was already full of thoughts:

"Sikong went south to inspect and everything went smoothly. When he arrived at Bowang, he should just take a look and go through the motions. He asked me to stand up and clear the road and arrange receptions, but Sikong was just sympathetic to his feelings.

In fact, I just wanted to give me a day off in advance and talk to the old robes. I haven't seen each other for more than four months, and I don't know what happened to Yuan Jian and Deyan.

I remember that on the eve of my transfer last year, Sikong Yaosui ordered him to overcome the difficulties of blasting inclined shafts. Now the progress of excavating rocks is definitely much faster. The troops led by Yuan Jian and others must have exceeded the completion. It is time to prepare for rewards this time."

Chen Dao was in the twelfth month of last year. After Li Su arrived in Luoyang, he reorganized the escort troops around him and asked Gao Shun for people to leave. So before Chen Dao left, he also trained the new army in Nanyang under Gao Shun's command, and also supervised the construction of the prisoners.

So, he and Liao Hua and Zong Yu were colleagues, and they did the same job under Gao Shun.

Especially Zong Yu was Chen Dao's old subordinate, and Liao Hua was born in the Xiangyang Army and accepted the adaptation with Liu Biao's troops. Now Liao Hua has become the commander, but Zong Yu was too young and was only a military Sima.

But they have actually been promoted quickly. After all, they have no outstanding military achievements. They rely entirely on the expansion of the new army to be responsible for training, play the role of supervisors, and accumulate some business contributions.

In a moment, Chen Da arrived at the city, called for opening the gate of the county town, and went straight to the city office. After handing over with the county magistrate and the Ministry of Works stationed in Bowang, Chen Da got free and went straight to the military camp to find Liao Huazongyu to learn about the recent situation in private.

After seeing this, Chen Dao was quite surprised. Because Liao Huazongyu was very decadent, he remembered that when he handed over to the Ministry of Workers and the Ministry of Workers and Cao's subordinates just now, they were also dejected.

As for the Minister of Works, Guo Yuan, he was not in the city. He personally ate and lived on the front-line construction site and supervised and adjusted the construction plan, so Chen Dao had not seen him for the time being.

"Yuan Jian, De Yan, what's going on? When I left at the end of last year, didn't Sikong give instructions on the new construction plan of the Minister of State? In fact, you should be doing well. Is the blasting effect not good, or is it that black gunpowder cannot be supplied? Or is there an accident that the blasting blows to kill the civilians?"

Seeing his colleague's frowning face, Chen Dao couldn't help asking.

Liao Hua was not wearing any armor in the camp, and it seemed that the recruits in the camp were a little lazy. Liao Hua said sadly: "It started late last month, and there were new troubles. The soil that was finally dug out in winter and the prototype of the river that was dug out actually grew back!

The earth and rocks on both sides of the excavation location seemed to be alive. Shortly after the beginning of spring, the wind grew every day. At first we didn’t believe this evil, thinking that it was the new recruits in the corvee service to be lazy. A few days ago, they lied to report the excavation amount, so they urged the supervisor to dig a little more.

Unexpectedly, the soil and rocks continued to rise outward. Later, even the Minister of Works found it strange and ordered a five-day suspension of work to observe. But in the end, there were more than 20 miles of rivers on Bowang, which had grown again! There were also some people in Ye County that grew back, but not that obvious.

Now people are in panic. Everyone is unwilling to work, and the supervisor has no choice but to do anything. They can't even count the excavation amount every day. I don't know if anyone is lazy. Anyway, those who dig fewer things, even if the riverbed grows back, they cannot prove it. There are only 10 people who take the opportunity to be lazy. Alas, some people say that Sikong is going against the will of heaven."

After hearing this, Chen Dao was shocked and felt that it was unheard of.

The soil and stones actually grow and heal on their own? What a fantasy of mountains and seas!

"Can you take me to see it? Sikong will arrive tomorrow. Are you not afraid of being punished if you are so lazy?" Chen Dao said anxiously.

"It doesn't matter, but it can't be solved." Liao Huazongyu looked like he had already accepted his fate.

Then, they rode their horses out of the city and led Chen to the construction site. Sure enough, after walking along the river for dozens of miles, they found that some sections of the river had been dug more obviously, and some were dug four or five feet deep.

But some locations only seem to have traces of excavation, but the depth is only more than one meter or even a few feet. If the lime powder piled with the project line drawing was not on both sides of the pre-excavation location and indicating the project volume, it would not even be felt that this is a canal under construction.

(The depth of the river channel is not that deep at that time. Because you have to cross the mountains, the depth of the digging is generally relatively large. I dug five feet down from Tongbai Mountain, but it has not reached the level of the source of the pure water)

However, looking at these static states, Chen Dao could not see the problem. He didn't know that these things were really not dug from the beginning, but they grew back. So he asked Liao Hua to introduce them and met Guo Yuan, the Minister of Works, and asked him for instructions.

"Shishangshu, Sikong will arrive tomorrow. He sent me to the reception station and clear the way along the way. Yuan Jian and the others told me that there is soil and stones growing naturally in the canal. Can you ask the craftsmen to dig a certain section for another day today, measure the depth of the final digging and draw a mark.

When Sikong comes tomorrow, you can see if it has grown significantly. I can also help you testify. After all, Sikong is a military officer and has a lot of money every day. I am afraid that there is not so much time to observe on the construction site for several days."

Guoyuan didn't want to slacke in work. He was just because he was really depressed by this new situation in the past ten days. Chen Dao said so, he was willing to cooperate with the experiment again.

So Guoyuan personally summoned many commanders and army Sima who led the new recruits to serve, and ordered them to welcome the inspection and cooperate with Chen Dao sent by Sikong to conduct an experiment and witness it.

Everyone heard that it was to report the situation to the top that they regained their morale. They dug wildly for a long time, and after nightfall, they still kept working on a torch.

Guoyuan concentrated tens of thousands of people to dig a test river channel of hundreds of feet long, and it was the one with the most serious soil and rock growth before. 40% of the new recruits dig hard, and 60% were responsible for carrying soil to the distance. After being tired, there was still a reserve team to take turns.

Because of the huge investment and regardless of cost, including the time of construction at night, the three-mile-long test river section was dug two meters deeper within half a day, and the cross-section width was four meters.

It was not until the second day that Guoyuan ordered to stop and also added extra meals to the soldiers who dug the soil. On that day, the soldiers all ate five meals, all of them were dry rice, and two steamed buns with lard and soy sauce, which calmed down the hard work of heavy labor.

After stopping, Guoyuan sent a surveyor to mark in front of Chen Dao, then measured the digging depth and recorded the data. He and Chen Dao signed the data to show that the excavation results were notarized tonight and that if they rose back tomorrow, they would be fine.

Finally, Guoyuan announced that he would dig a reservoir prepared next to him and lure the water over to flood the newly dug river.

Chen Dao was puzzled: "Why do we need to let the river flood?"

Guoyuan: "The soil in this riverbed is very evil. At first, we didn't understand the rules of growth, but later we found that it would grow only after being immersed in water. But this is not surprising. Don't all things need water to grow.

The excavated part did not rise in winter before. It is probably because of the lack of water in winter, it does not rain much, and the snow in the mountains and mountains are frozen and accumulated.

After spring in March, snow melted from the heights of Tongbai Mountain, converged into a flood, flowing down the low-lying area, so the problem of river soil rising in the past half month has begun.

But there is nothing we can do about this. If you want to build a canal in the future, the riverbed must be soaked in water all year round. Even if you know that this soil grows when it encounters water, you can't let it not encounter water.

So this problem must be solved, otherwise the river will not be dug. When Sikong comes to see it tomorrow, I will release the water on the spot, but even if it is dried, the soil will still be grown. If you don’t believe it, you will see it tomorrow.”

...

Chen Dao was also troubled by this matter and did not have a good rest on the construction site overnight with Guoyuan.

The next day, Li Su finally came to Bowang, and was immediately attracted to the construction site to meet with officials from the Ministry of Works headed by Guoyuan, and inspect the work.

The project is important, so Zhuge Liang, Huan Jie and others also followed. As for the engineering personnel who had just been subdued, whether it was Ma Jun or Titus from Rome, they all observed and studied together. Li Su also hoped that they might give some technical advice.

As soon as Li Su appeared, the scene was a little out of control. Countless officers and new soldiers, and the people who were recruited for labor, knelt beside the road, begging Li Su to take back his life.

Guoyuan was still rational, but objectively stated the difficulties, and then said: "The river soil grew when it met water and returned to the plain. Yesterday, Wei Duwei also witnessed this. He also signed the construction record.

After a while, my subordinates would let someone let the water go. Sikong Ke saw with his own eyes how the riverbed was soaked in water and grew back. If this matter was not resolved, the river would probably not be repaired. However, my subordinates were not lazy, but they just didn't want to do useless things. Please think of a solution first."

Li Su had actually known this in his heart for a long time, because the most important reason for the people of the Song Dynasty in history to collapse and give up was that the evil "the land will grow back". This kind of thing was too supernatural to the ancients. The mental blow was enough to make the host collapse, feeling that he was going against the will of heaven and was punished by God.

So Li Su just calmly asked to observe the experimental results first and release the water immediately.

After a while, the part of the water digging deep into the river was emptied. Li Su looked at it and found that the soil was indeed yellow and white. According to the construction records, it was more than two meters deep yesterday, but now it has shrunk by at least seven or eight feet after one day. If it is soaked for another three days, it will not completely disappear.

Several superstitious grassroots officials had a relatively pedantic temper. At this time, they had already put on a straight attitude, wanting to ask for a "bluntly speaking, dare to advise", and went out to persuade:

"Sikong! I cut through Tongbai Mountain to build a canal. I am afraid that this matter will go against the will of heaven! During the reign of Emperor Shun, the world was flooded. Gun and Yu successively used the flood to control the flood. Gun used Xilan. It was blocked when encountering water and swelled when encountering water, but did not understand the principle that it was better to drain than blockage, and eventually failed.

Today, the Tongbai Mountain land in Bowang section is not left by the ancient Xilan. Its swelling when it encounters water is completely consistent with the ancient statement! Please don’t force yourself to go against the will of heaven!”

Li Su couldn't help but feel funny when she heard this: It turned out that this thing hurts so much to the ancients. An expansive soil could actually remind "Xirang". No wonder the people of the Song Dynasty finally gave up. Not only could they not afford to spend money and manpower, but they were more afraid of offending God and going against the will of heaven to be punished by God.

Li Su had already seen clearly the truth about these yellow-white expansive soils: That's right, they were written in the South-to-North Water Diversion News reports he read in his previous life. The expansive soil of Tongbai Mountain encountered by the people of the Song Dynasty was actually kaolin and montmorillonite.
Chapter completed!