Governor Zhao's worries soon became a reality.

Three days later, news came that the fleet had run aground just after passing Siyang County. A large number of sunken ships blocked the river, and the fleet was forced to stop.

What you fear will come true. Zhao Kongzhao hurriedly went to Siyang County, eighty miles away, with the deputy general of the grain transport system and Pingjiang Earl Chen Wangmo, braving the annoying spring rain.

Zhao Kongzhao also summoned the prefect of Huai'an. Huai'an Prefecture belonged to Nanzhili, but it was not under the jurisdiction of the Yingtian governor, but under the jurisdiction of the governor of the grain transport and concurrently the Fengyang governor. Therefore, the prefect of Huai'an was Zhao Kongzhao's direct subordinate, and of course he could come when he was called and go when he was dismissed.

It took the fleet three days to travel eighty miles. One can imagine how difficult the journey was.

An hour later, Governor Zhao and Earl Pingjiang caught up with the tail of the fleet... Two thousand canal boats were sailing side by side on the canal, with the distance between the head and the tail at least forty miles.

Looking at the spectacular scene of boat jam before his eyes, Pingjiang Bo asked the boatmen and learned that they had been stuck here for a day and a night.

"Damn it!" Chen Wangmo spat in frustration, "At this rate, this little grain won't even be enough for the people on the ship. We might as well just sail over empty and buy grain in Shandong to ship to the capital!"

Upon hearing this, Zhao Kongzhao turned around and looked at him deeply.

Although Chen Wangmo was an earl, the Ming Dynasty valued civil officials over military officials, so he was still a little afraid of Zhao Kongzhao and said awkwardly, "I was just kidding."

"Why didn't you say it earlier? It's hindsight." Zhao Kongzhao sighed and rode his horse forward.

Chen Wangmo then realized that the Governor-General actually thought this was a good idea...

"Hehe." Pingjiang Bo laughed and quickly spurred his horse to catch up.

The two men continued to walk for more than 40 miles, and finally arrived at the place where the canal boat sank at noon. It turned out that this was a wide shallow beach, and there was even a huge sandbar in the middle of the river, which the locals called Mapeng Island.

The water flow in the area of ​​Mapeng Island is slow, and silt is very easy to accumulate. Every year during the dry season, the Canal Transport Office has to organize manpower to dredge and clear the silt. It was only April, and Zhao Kongzhao felt that the problem should not be serious.

Who would have thought that he was too optimistic. The canal was cut off last time, and a huge amount of silt was deposited here, making the work of last year in vain, and the siltation situation became even more serious.

The two county magistrates of Sihong and Suqian had already brought laborers to the scene to direct the pulling of the oars.

Upon hearing that the governor of the grain transport system and the governor of the prefecture were arriving, the two county magistrates, covered in mud, hurried forward to greet them.

"What's going on now?" Zhao Kongzhao turned over and dismounted. Seeing that his newly changed official boots had fallen into the yellow mud again, he couldn't help but frown and cursed in his hometown dialect: "Damn it!"

"Reporting to the minister, the river in this area is too wide, which makes it very difficult to pull the boat." The Sihong County Magistrate replied hurriedly.

"Our two counties are negotiating hard and trying to come up with a solution as soon as possible." The magistrate of Suqian also replied.

Zhao Kongzhao knew that "actively negotiate" meant "insisting on procrastinating". He cursed again, "You are not doing your job properly!" Then, with the help of his personal soldiers, he angrily walked up to the river bank.

When he got to the embankment and took a look, he felt a headache. The river was too wide. The boat was in the middle of the river and the laborers had no way of pulling it from the shore.

The boatmen could only pull the boat in waist-deep water. The mud was soft and deep, so they couldn't exert any strength. They slid all over the place, but the boat didn't move at all.

"The river is so wide, why don't you let the boats behind pass by?" Zhao Kongzhao asked with a frown.

"That's the deepest part. It's even shallower on the edge. It's impossible to cross." The magistrate of Suqian pointed at the stranded ships nearby with a wry smile and said, "Those ships just didn't believe in evil. They all sank."

Zhao Kongzhao paced along the river for a long while, and finally gave an order in frustration: "Unload the boat! Empty the boat, drive over and load it up again!"

"Yes!" The two county magistrates hurriedly took the order and left. They had thought of such a simple method a long time ago. However, they had no right to order the grain ships to unload, so they could only discuss it with the officers escorting the ships.

But the other party firmly disagreed. There was no village in front of the ship, no shop behind, and no dock, let alone a warehouse. How could they unload and load the ship? Besides, it was raining. If the grain was left on the shore, it would be soaked in less than half a day.

Once it arrives in Beijing, there is no need to send it to Taicang. Just send it directly to the winery for brewing.

Now that the governor has given the order, the officers don't have to worry about the consequences and will naturally follow it.

So the county first sent a small boat to unload the grain from the five or six stranded grain boats, bag by bag, and transported them to the temporary reed sheds set up by the river.

Even though the grain boat was only half loaded, it still carried nearly 300 sacks of grain. The small boat could only carry five or six sacks at most, and they dared not load more, otherwise they would run aground.

This was extremely inefficient and it wasn't until midnight that all the boats were emptied.

The empty grain boat automatically floated out of the mud and was pulled across this damn section of the river by the laborers.

~~

The river surface was cleared, but the grain boats behind did not dare to follow, otherwise they would also be stranded.

Moreover, there were as many as two thousand of them, and they were unloaded and reloaded just like the six grain ships. It would probably be winter by the time they arrived in the capital.

"Make preparations overnight and start clearing the silt tomorrow morning." Zhao Kongzhao wiped the rain off his face and gave the order directly.

Artificial rivers are most prone to siltation. The Canal Transport Office has been in operation for 150 to 60 years, and there has not been a year when it has not been cleared. Nature has accumulated a wealth of means to clear silt during the peach, summer, and autumn floods.

"This..." The magistrates of Suqian and Sihong looked embarrassed.

"What?" Zhao Kongzhao frowned irritably and asked, "You don't want to do it?"

"How dare we disobey the Ministry's order?" The two county magistrates quickly apologized and explained, "It is because the Minister of Rivers came in person today and ordered us to guard the Yellow River embankment from tomorrow to prevent floods."

"Yes, Minister, Minister Weng said that this year's wheat and yellow water is much stronger than in previous years. The newly repaired dam must be further reinforced and guarded day and night..." The magistrate of Sihong pointed to a tall city wall with flashing lights in the night ten miles away, and said in a mosquito-like voice.

That was not a city wall, but the Yellow River embankment. The flames were the lanterns in the hands of the soldiers patrolling the embankment. The Yellow River and the Grand Canal run parallel to each other in Huai'an, less than ten miles apart.

The county magistrates of each county were in charge of the rivers in their respective counties, and were under the leadership of the river administration office in terms of flood control and water conservancy affairs. Being an official in such a hellhole was really a disaster.

As expected, the two were immediately scolded by the Lord of the Mansion. "Listen, is this human language? The order of the River Administration Office is important, but can we just ignore the words of the Ministry?"

"I dare not." The two men shook their heads quickly. The Governor of the Canal Transport was also the Governor of Fengyang, and was their big boss, so of course he was more important than the Prime Minister of the Canal.

But the problem is that the Yellow River is much more terrifying than the Grand Canal. If the Grand Canal is blocked, at most the grain cannot be transported north, but the people of Huai'an will not starve. But if the Grand Canal breaks its banks, their two counties will follow the footsteps of Pei County, Zou County, Teng County and other places and become a flood area...

But they dared not mention this to the Governor, so the two of them had no choice but to agree.

Zhao Kongzhao looked at the continuous rain in the sky and felt an uncontrollable irritation in his heart.

"I will not delay your river works. Let me give you two days. If you cannot clear the channel in two days, you will resign and apologize!"

He left this question unquestionable, then turned away and went down the embankment to rest.

"You guys think of a solution." As soon as the governor left, the prefect changed his expression and whispered to his two subordinates, "You have been wronged."

Upon hearing this, the Sihong County Magistrate grumbled, "It's not like the imperial court is unaware of the situation here. What's wrong with the grain ship leaving a few days late? Why do you have to join in the fun?"

"Yes, even if the ministry sent a few boats to test the waters first, we wouldn't be in such a dilemma as we are now." The magistrate of Suqian also nodded in agreement.

"You only focus on the matter at hand, so of course you say that." The prefect laughed bitterly and lowered his voice, "The court must be under pressure. Haven't you figured it out? The ministers are now willing to spare no expense to get the grain ships to the north as soon as possible. Don't be so blind, the two of you."

"Oh, I understand." The two poor county magistrates bowed to the governor and went back to think of a way to see if they could take care of both.

~~

The solution they finally came up with was for Magistrate Liu of Suqian to lead people to dredge the canal, while Magistrate Feng of Sihong would guard the Yellow River embankment. Once there was a flood, or Weng Dali came to inspect, Magistrate Feng would quickly send someone to call Magistrate Liu to the embankment, and this way they could barely deal with the situation.

In the flood season, the first way to clear the silt is to use boats to drag the silt. That is, a large iron dragon like a rake is sunk to the bottom of the water, tied to the stern with a rope, and then the boatman rowed hard to make the boat go downstream. This was repeated hundreds of times, just like plowing the land, digging up the silt at the bottom of the river and carrying it away with the flowing water.

The second method is to use a large iron scoop-like iron net to scoop up river mud on a boat, fill the boat with mud, unload it at the shore, and then come back to dig.

However, both methods were inefficient. County Magistrate Liu requisitioned hundreds of boats and several hundred people who worked continuously digging and dredging on the river. It took two full days to dredge the two-mile-long river.

Unexpectedly, just after the silt was cleared, thunder rumbled in the sky, and the spring rain, which had been falling slowly, suddenly became fast and heavy.

"Fuck it, all my work was in vain." County Magistrate Liu slipped and fell on the sandbar, cursing in a helpless manner.

Judging from the intensity of the rain, the water level in the canal will rise soon. If we had known this, we would not have needed to dredge the canal, and we would not have even had to waste the grain ships. We could have waited for the water level to rise and the canal ships would have been able to get out of trouble.

Zhao Kongzhao, half of his body soaked, stood in the heavy rain with mixed feelings.

The good news is that since this rain, there is no need to worry about the ship being stranded. The worry is that such heavy rain will inevitably bring about a bigger flood. Can the Yellow River embankment, which is riddled with holes, withstand it?

"Pass the order down, all ships cast off and set sail to leave this section as soon as possible!" Governor Zhao suppressed his uneasiness and gave the order in a deep voice.

"Minister, it's raining so hard, how are we going to sail?" Pingjiang Bo frowned.

"I can't care about that anymore!" Zhao Kongzhao's voice trembled, and he pointed to the sky and said, "The black clouds are coming from the north. It's probably raining upstream, and the wheat and yellow water will be here soon!"

As if to confirm his words, after a flash of white lightning, there was a continuous rumbling sound.

First, it was spring thunder. Then, it was spring tide!

ps. Second update, please give me your monthly vote!