Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator.

Zhou Yu posed two difficulties in a row, causing Gu Yong's brow to furrow involuntarily.

Gu Yong understood water conservancy and governance, but knew little about military affairs; naval warfare and warships were areas he had never ventured into.

After Zhou Yu raised these two difficulties, Gu Yong pondered them briefly in his mind and understood.

It was like tossing a writing brush onto the surface of a stream; the likelihood of the brush landing perfectly between two stones of similar length was extremely small.

How could the raging torrent of the Yellow River breach be compared to a small stream?

Any ship that approached the breach within a certain range would inevitably lose control and capsize.

Unless they disregarded the cost and simultaneously steered all the warships in the fleet towards the breach, relying on sheer numbers, they might temporarily block the breach on the surface.

But the breach was not a flat surface; merely blocking it temporarily on the surface would not be effective.

Moreover, how would the sailors steering the ships towards the breach escape?

Even if the military households and soldiers supported Liu Bei, they were not unafraid of death.

If it were Yangzhou, their home, that was about to be submerged, the military households and soldiers might not lack the resolve to fight to the death.

But to have the military households and soldiers die like this in a foreign land, no matter how great Sun Ce and Zhou Yu's prestige was, it would be difficult to garner enough support.

Furthermore, to achieve what Gu Yong suggested, greatly slowing the flow of water from the breach by sinking ships,

even large warships would need to have at least five or more sunk to form a relatively tight pile at the breach.

All these conditions that needed to be met, just thinking about it made it clear that it was impossible, which was why Zhou Yu objected.

It would be fine if sacrificing lives could solve the problem, but the fear was that they would make great sacrifices and still fail.

However, facing Zhou Yu's concerns, Gu Yong's expression quickly relaxed, and he turned to the Tiger Guards protecting him and asked.

"Where is the detailed manifest of the materials carried by the fleet?"

The Tiger Guard quickly found the detailed manifest of the materials carried by the fleet and handed it to Gu Yong.

Gu Yong took the manifest and quickly flipped through it.

Since he knew in advance that coming to the Yellow River was to control the water, and to block any potential breaches in the Yellow River,

no matter how hurried Gu Yong was to set sail, he would naturally not fail to prepare a series of materials and tools needed for water control.

Hoes, shovels, sacks, and other conventional materials were naturally unnecessary to mention; Wu Commandery had a large inventory of tools related to water control.

"Found it!"

Gu Yong's tone revealed a hint of excitement as he pointed to an item on the manifest, which was none other than ten iron chains each of twenty, thirty, and forty zhang.

Immediately, Gu Yong stretched out both hands, gestured, and asked Zhou Yu.

"If two large ships were placed on either side of the breach, anchored and secured to the Yellow River bank with ship anchors and iron chains, and then connected to the large ship on the opposite side with iron chains."

"In this way, wouldn't there be a large number of iron chains like a large net across the breach, able to stop the ships blocking the breach from being washed away by the torrent?"

Zhou Yu's eyes widened, and a look of excitement unconsciously appeared on his face.

Based on Zhou Yu's experience, the feasibility of this was undoubtedly greatly increased.

With a large number of iron chains blocking the breach, the ships could slowly approach the breach from the side, minimizing the impact of rushing into the breach; the iron chains might be enough to stop the ships.

Next, they could sink the ships at the breach and allow the sailors on board to climb away along the iron chains above the water, so they wouldn't be buried in the water.

Zhou Yu couldn't help but reply.

"This plan is feasible!"

Gu Yong replied. "If that's the case, there's no time to lose. I ask you all to help me try it immediately and quickly initially block the Yellow River breach."

… …

While Sun Ce was leading the army to try to block the breach with Gu Yong's support, the news of the Yellow River bursting its banks also quickly spread throughout the Central Plains and the surrounding areas of the lords and aristocratic families.

However, the vast majority of people thought this was merely a natural disaster.

The Yellow River flooding was a problem that the Central Plains had been unable to get rid of for countless years.

Although it was not the rainy season, the imperial court had not had the resources to reinforce and repair the dikes along the Yellow River for many years, so it was not surprising that the dikes suddenly collapsed somewhere.

But when this news reached the Liu army camp outside Ruyang City, beneath Li Ji's seemingly calm expression, a raging fire was ignited.

No matter how unscrupulous, there should be a limit!

If Li Ji hadn't inadvertently glanced at Jia Xu one day and subconsciously made a guess with the most bottom-line thinking, he would never have imagined that Cao Cao could have such a move.

At this moment, Li Ji couldn't help but feel a little scared.

If he hadn't realized the possibility of the Yellow River bursting its banks in advance, and waited until the news came back to send Gu Yong to rush there, not to mention the entire Xu Province being flooded, at least Donghai Commandery would probably not escape being affected as well.

In this way, half of Xu Province would be completely ruined.

Not only would there be no people, but even the farmland and houses would be completely destroyed, and it would take at least five years to recover, and it would cost countless money, food, and energy.

What's more, after the flood, epidemics often broke out, and the deaths of the people directly and indirectly caused by them would probably cause the entire Central Plains to be greatly damaged.

Everyone knew that war would lead to a serious decline in population.

But the population that died from the word "chaos" was often ten times more than those who died directly on the battlefield.

Next, as long as Gu Yong could close the breach in time and let the flood recede as soon as possible, then all of this could still be saved.

'I just don't know how Bofu is? I hope there's no danger to his life… …'

Li Ji muttered to himself, then drafted a letter to send to Liu Bei.

Based on Li Ji's understanding of Liu Bei, when Liu Bei learned that Cao Cao had frantically dug open the Yellow River, he would inevitably be furious.

Appeasing Liu Bei was one thing, but at the same time, he also attached suggestions on how to solve the matter later.

After Li Ji sealed the letter and handed it over to Gu Wei to send to Xia Pi.

Li Ji inadvertently looked at the Yuzhou map hanging in the camp.

More precisely, Li Ji was looking at the location of Yingchuan Commandery in Yuzhou, and then showed a bitter smile, and muttered.

"Xun Wenruo, is this perhaps something you pushed behind the scenes?"

"However, whether it is or not, it doesn't matter… …"

"What you dug open is not only the Yellow River, but also the lifeline of the entire aristocratic family!"

Previously, Liu Bei's impression of the Yingchuan aristocratic families was quite bad.

Now that Cao Cao's staff of advisors is mainly composed of the Yingchuan aristocratic families headed by the Xun clan, it will inevitably make Liu Bei's dislike of the Yingchuan aristocratic families even worse.

More importantly, previously, under Li Ji's repeated analysis, even if Liu Bei recognized the harm of the aristocratic families, he still had some benevolence towards the aristocratic families.

Even though many matters concerning the aristocratic families were fully entrusted to Li Ji, Liu Bei's attention to the aristocratic families was enough to explain many things.

Now, Cao Cao's digging of the Yellow River with the support of advisors headed by the Xun clan is enough to make Liu Bei completely determined to reform this class of aristocratic families.

(End of this chapter)