Ten Dragons Take the Inheritance

Chapter 53 The Problem of the River Worker (seeking tickets)

River engineering, as the name suggests, is a river defense project, but in the Qing Dynasty it specifically refers to the projects and affairs of harnessing the Yellow River, Huaihe River and canals.But all the dynasties in the north that set their capitals attach great importance to river engineering-he engineering is related to the safety of water transportation and the problem of food supply in the capital.Once the river works are corrupted, the whole north will be hungry, but there has never been a dynasty that attaches so much importance to river works as the Qing Dynasty: not only has a huge river work management organization, the establishment of a river channel governor, but also an astonishing amount of funds invested in river work management every year. On the eve of the Opium War, among the regular fiscal expenditures of the Qing government, the river and pond construction fees totaled 526.28 taels, accounting for 10.39% of the total expenditure, second only to military expenditure (accounting for 57.14%) and official salary expenditure (accounting for 15.58%) ).

It stands to reason that investing such a huge amount of manpower and material resources can at least ensure the safety of the water transportation. In fact, it is not the case. The Yellow River and the Huaihe River have broken their embankments every year, and the water transportation is also intermittent. However, it is an indisputable fact that the capital's food supply is tight. Kangxi failed to do his best in the two expeditions to the west. The biggest problem is the insufficient supply of food and grass.Since Jin Fu, the governor of the river channel, was defeated by Guo Xiu in the early 27th year of Kangxi, in just eight years, there have been nine governors of the river channel.

First of all, river work is a technical job. To become a qualified river work supervisor, not only a wealth of theoretical knowledge is required, but also long-term practical experience. It can be done, the existing river engineering officials in the Qing Dynasty are not qualified at all in terms of quality - a group of scholars who have spent their entire lives on the Four Books and Five Classics have no time to study river engineering, they are basically half-way monks.

Secondly, the setup of the organization is also extremely unreasonable: In order to reflect the importance of river engineering, the Qing Dynasty set up the post of River Governor to take charge of river engineering since the establishment of the dynasty in Beijing. This was originally a good intention, but there was a somewhat weird The Ministry of Industry is in charge of construction and water conservancy in the world. Logically speaking, river engineering is also within the scope of the Ministry of Industry. However, the management of river engineering is now independent, but the cost estimation and accounting are still managed by the Ministry of Industry. Now, there will be endless disputes between the two families.Furthermore, the current management of river works is a segmented responsibility system, and the officials and assistants in each segment are uneven, and the ability to repair the river embankment is also very different. There are many problems with the quality of the river works.

Thirdly, the river engineering organization is huge, overstaffed, and there are not many capable officials. Corrupt officials are overwhelmingly numerous. The origin of the organization is complicated. Every governor of the river will stuff some of his own people into the organization, and there are even more disciples of the dignitaries in the court, and the coated slaves of the elder brothers.These officials are not good at river construction, but they are very good at such things as deducting wages and falsely reporting construction costs. Expecting this group of people to do a good job in river construction is almost like expecting a pie in the sky.

Fourth, whether it is Jin Fu, a generation of water-controlling officials, or his incompetent successors, the "sweeping water and attacking sand" or "multiple dikes" used in river management are based on blocking, not on Yu Shu——I will block the embankment wherever it breaks. Not to mention being exhausted, it has no effect. Let alone the backward technology at the moment, even the mechanized operation of later generations will not be able to completely prevent the occurrence of embankment breaches.But, then again, there is nothing to be done about the blockage—the important task of water transportation is there, how can the boat sail without water in the canal?

When it comes to water transportation, this is another extremely annoying thing: the Qing Dynasty implemented official transportation, and the carrier was a relatively wealthy Junding (Yunding) in the military status of the Weisuo.When shipping, each ship will be equipped with one transporter, one transporter, and nine to ten hired sailors.The number of sailors transported by the provinces varies, and the total number is about 10.The highest officer of Water Transport is the Governor of Water Transport, who is stationed in Huai'an.Under it are the grain roads of each province, a total of seven people, who are in charge of the province's grain storage, administer the subordinate military guards, select the officials who lead the transportation and accompany the gang, and instruct all the prefectures to gather and select the transportation army, etc., sit and guard the water, supervise and verify the grain. For exchange, hand it over to the escort officer in person, and accompany the ship to Huai'an under the supervision of the ship, and present it to the governor for inspection.The officials in the water transportation are all fat and vacancies. After a three-year term of office, a Daotai has at least [-] to [-] silver in his hand. This is relatively clean. Ten thousand taels of silver is not too much of a problem.

Because of the huge investment in river engineering and water transportation, corrupt officials are flooding them, and the price of a stone of rice transported from the place of origin to the capital is more than three times that of the place of origin, which greatly dragged down the financial situation of the Qing Dynasty; The personal conquest of Galdan cost a lot of money. By the 35th year of Kangxi, the originally loose finances had already suffered a huge deficit.Mr. Kangxi also knew the ability and character of the gang of river workers and grain road officials. He sent the fourth elder brother Yinzhen, who was always known for his strictness, to try to rectify the river workers and grain roads. Si not only failed to rectify the administration of officials, but was put together by the officials of the screwdriver and nearly died in the flood. Dan's war involved him too much, and he had to temporarily put aside the matter of the river project. This time, Yinzuo hit the old man's gun for the sake of "xingfu", and the old man Kangxi took advantage of the situation The sweet potato was put in Yinzuo's arms.

Hey, old man, count yourself as cruel!We don’t understand river engineering, but when we participated in flood fighting and emergency rescue in our previous life, we read a lot of information on this aspect. The key to river control is actually very simple, isn’t it just a word?As long as the water transportation can be guaranteed, there is no need to block the gaps everywhere. Not only are there no blockages, but also open a few more water conservancy facilities such as open channels to make good use of the water resources of the Yellow River and the Huaihe River. There are a lot of fertile fields.As for the water transport, it is also very simple. You just need to change all the inland water transport to sea transport and you will be done. We have not spent these years in vain, and we have already prepared.But now that I come up with a plan, even if the old man believes it, I'm afraid he won't be able to pass the test of the minister of the court. No way, we still have to go up to the river worker for a walk. What is this called?Yes, it is called true knowledge through practice.

Well, we just took over this job, and those brothers came to our door to give gifts in the name of congratulating us on moving to a new house or congratulating on our engagement. Even the prince sent someone to send some things like jade wishful thinking , but there is no movement from the fourth child, so I don't know what the fourth child is thinking in his heart.Yinzuo was hesitant, so he went straight to Yinzhen's mansion...

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Let me ask you a question: What is Yin Zuo's purpose in running to Lao Si's house?

(End of this chapter)