Upon hearing this, Pan Jixun glanced at Zhu Heng, wondering what this old man was up to.

"Don't worry. It's such a serious matter. How can you make any assumptions if you haven't seen it with your own eyes or heard it with your own ears?" Zhu Heng walked towards the breach with his hands behind his back.

Pan Jixun followed behind and listened to Zhu Butang continue: "When I came, it was the peak of the flood, and the water was at its most powerful. When the flood burst out of the weir, I witnessed a spectacle. The turbulent Yellow River water suddenly increased in speed, and the water level rose several times. The powerful water force was like hot soup pouring on snow, quickly dissolving and carrying away the silt on both sides of the breach, and soon a deep trench was washed out, reaching the canal in the distance."

As they were talking, the two men arrived at the breach and went down to the edge of the yellow water.

"The water flow has slowed down now, and the scene at that time can no longer be seen." Zhu Heng said as he waved his hand. The Deputy Director of the Du Shui Qing Li Si nearby quickly ordered the soldiers to insert a long probe into the water.

When the bottom of the pole touched the ground, the three-meter-long probe was almost submerged.

"Look, this was originally flat ground, but it was attacked and sunk three feet." Zhu Heng sighed and said, "The power of heaven and earth is so terrifying!"

It was impossible for an old man like Zhu Heng, who was too concerned about his reputation, to apologize. Pan Jixun knew that this was already a sign of his admitting his mistake.

Pan Zhongcheng snorted in a rather flattering manner and explained, "It was only after seeing this scene before that I realized that there is such an ingenious restrictive relationship between water flow and mud and sand. After repeated experiments, I came up with the idea of ​​'restraining water to attack sand'."

"Yes." Zhu Heng nodded and sighed, "I am old, and Weng Rushen is also unable to shoulder the heavy responsibility. The responsibility of managing the Yellow River in the future will inevitably fall on your shoulders."

"The minister is only nine years older than me, so he is far from old." Pan Jixun is like this, he is soft when others are soft, and hard when others are hard. He said politely: "The river project still needs the minister to supervise, otherwise it will never be done."

"Alas, come to think of it, you are not even fifty yet, but you look like a little old man in your sixties." Zhu Heng was very satisfied with Pan Jixun's statement. He looked at him deeply and sighed, "I am no different. In my previous life, I did not cultivate my talent to be a river engineer. We have done evil in three lifetimes, so we have to deal with the Yellow River for our whole lives."

"We can't help it. Someone has to do it." Pan Jixun smiled and said, "We don't feel comfortable letting those idiots take care of the river work."

"Yes." Zhu Heng nodded and lowered his voice, "It was my mistake to use Weng Rucan to replace you. In fact, he has been working diligently in recent years, and I should give him a hand, but this matter is too big, and he cannot shirk his responsibility. The best outcome is that I can help him get dismissed and return home."

"Yeah." Pan Jixun nodded. Although he knew that Weng Dali deserved it, he couldn't help feeling a little sad for the other party.

"But the river works cannot stop." Zhu Heng said, and then he looked at Pan Jixun deeply and said, "The next Minister of Rivers must be you. I will take this opportunity to fight for you and see if I can get the title of Right Censor-in-Chief. This way, you will at least be equal to the Governor of the Canal, and you won't be constrained anymore."

Pan Jixun knew that this kind of matter was not something the Minister of Works could decide, so he just treated it as an empty promise and agreed vaguely.

"In short, follow your ideas. I will fully support you." Zhu Heng patted Pan Jixun on the shoulder, completing his attitude change.

~~

On almost the same day, news of the Yellow River bursting its banks for the second time was also spread by express train to Beijing.

Upon hearing the bad news, Emperor Longqing was so angry that he impulsively smashed his beloved evil-averting porcelain.

"What idiots are ruining the country! Even if they did nothing, they could have saved a few counties from being flooded and saved a hundred thousand shi of grain from being lost!"

The emperor was furious at the time, and when he saw the broken porcelain pieces on the ground, he became even more furious. "If I don't chop off their dog heads, I will be sorry... sorry for me and my people!"

He immediately ordered the Jinyiwei to arrest Weng Dali and Zhao Kongzhao and bring them to the capital. Longqing wanted to pry open their skulls to see if they were covered with yellow mud.

In addition, they were asked to compensate for their beloved porcelain.

If one is broken, it won’t be a complete set, do you understand?

My heart is buzzing and it hurts so much.

~~

The news of the Yellow River bursting quickly spread throughout the capital, causing an uproar!

Now even ordinary people knew that the canal transportation was over and they could not count on the Grand Canal for a few years.

As a result, the rice price in Beijing, which had been suppressed with great difficulty, began to rise again. If the second batch of 100 ships of grain shipped north by sea had not arrived in Beijing in time, I am afraid that the price of grain would have reached a new high.

But the scale of sea transportation was too small. Just as the Marquis of Zhenyuan said, 30,000 shi was just a drop in the bucket and could not solve the urgent needs of the Ming Dynasty.

For a time, the public's calls for expanding the scale of maritime transport grew louder and louder, and public opinion was completely one-sided.

Seeing that the time was ripe, Zhao Hao, who had been sitting on the sidelines, finally started to make his move.

In the next few days, officials from the northern and southern capitals successively wrote letters to the court, asking them to immediately consider transporting grain by sea to replace the paralyzed grain transport.

Among these officials who submitted memorials, the most eye-catching one was Lin Run, the former governor of Yingtian. The news that Lin Zhongcheng had returned from the dead was shocking enough. This made his memorial particularly eye-catching.

Lin Run believed in his memorial that, in the current situation of the canal being blocked, the method of using both river and sea transportation should be adopted... that is, on the one hand, we should do our best to restore the grain transport, and on the other hand, we should start to use sea transportation as a temporary substitute. In this way, we can ensure the transportation of grain; secondly, we can buy time for rebuilding the canal, so as not to make the mistake of rushing forward. Thirdly, the cost of sea transportation is very low, it does not disturb the inland, and it can also greatly reduce the pressure on the people in the south of the Yangtze River and along the canal.

He also proposed that, based on the experience of the Yuan Dynasty, the sea transportation of grain did not have to be exclusively handled by the government, but could be undertaken by private merchants. As long as they were allowed to transport private goods on the return trip, merchants would flock to it. In this way, the court would not bear the risk and transportation costs, and merchants would gain the benefits of north-south freight transportation, which would be convenient for both the government and the people and alleviate their difficulties.

Lin Run's memorial soon caused a strong response in the government and the public. If his plan of "both river and sea" was relatively sound, then his proposal of "privatizing sea transport" was too bold.

Someone immediately jumped out to object, saying that Lin Run was too excited. The grain transport was related to the safety of the court, how could it be entrusted to merchants? Who would be responsible if something went wrong?

However, the Minister of Revenue, Ma Sen, was very interested in Lin Run's proposal.

If you ask who in the Ming Dynasty was most anxious after the grain transport was cut off, apart from the people in the grain transport office, it would probably be Ma Butang.

Because he knows his own business. Taicang currently has more than 6 million dan of grain in stock, and only 700,000 dan have been consumed in the past two months, so it seems that it can last for another year and a half.

But in fact, if the grain transport to the north was cut off, there would be trouble by the end of the year at the latest. The reason was simple. Although the grain stored in Taicang could be accounted for, it would be exposed if it was really used - because most of the grain stored in the thirteen warehouses in Tongzhou was old grain.

Anyone with a little common sense knows that old grain cannot be eaten if it is more than three years old. However, much of the old grain in Taicang has been stored for more than ten years, or even decades. It is simply used by the officials in charge of the warehouse to fill the warehouse!

After Ma Sen took office, he tried his best to replace the old grain. But this was an old problem that had been solved by successive generations of ministers of finance, so how could he solve it in two or three years?

If they dared to distribute the old grain that had been stored for more than ten years to the soldiers of the nine frontiers, I am afraid that the army would immediately mutiniate. At that time, the court would probably learn from Cao Cao and borrow his Ma Bu Tang's head to stabilize the army.

So Ma Sen was almost dying of anxiety. But he had to lie all day long and tell the people of the capital and the soldiers of the nine frontiers that the grain stored in the granary was enough for two years, everything was under control, and there was no need to panic.

If the truth ever comes out in the future, this will be damned evidence!

To the panicking Ma Butang, everything was nonsense. The right thing to do was to transport the grain from Jiangnan to the capital. As long as there was enough new grain, the old grain would always be stored in the warehouse and would not be exposed.

So his attitude towards sea shipping is the most positive.

But Ma Sen had become a high-ranking official, so how could he not know how inefficient the Ming officialdom was? If the imperial court were to organize the sea transport, it would probably take until the autumn to study and until next year to prepare. It would be impossible to start the transport unless the court ran out of resources or the army mutinied.

Ma Butang couldn't wait. He didn't want to be exposed and had to make the shipping happen quickly. So from the beginning, he paid close attention to the shipping operations of Jiangnan Group.

Lin Run's memorial gave him an excuse to "naturally" invite a merchant who currently had the ability to ship goods by sea... well, the person in charge of Jiangnan Group... well, Zhao Hao... to meet with the Ministry of Revenue and inquire about the feasibility of Jiangnan Group undertaking shipping.

During the interview, Mr. Zhao made it clear that the Jiangnan Group has always been loyal to the emperor and patriotic, and is willing to do its best to share the worries of the court during this time of national crisis.

To this end, Jiangnan Group is willing to complete the task of transporting grain by sea in the form of contracted transportation - that is, the group will pay the court the same amount of grain sent by the court at Liujiagang, Taicang, to ensure that not a single grain is missing. Any loss will be borne by Jiangnan Group and has nothing to do with the court!

In order to prove that the group was not just empty talk, they could even pay a deposit of one million taels of silver to the Ministry of Revenue in advance. If Jiangnan failed to deliver the grain on time and in full, the Ministry of Revenue could directly deduct it from the deposit.

The imperial court only needed to pay 20% of the total amount of grain transported as freight. The Jiangnan Group was also granted the right to trade by sea, allowing it to transport goods from the north to the south to make up for the losses incurred in sea transportation!

Zhao Hao also promised that Jiangnan Group was willing to bear no less than 2 million dan of grain per year during the period of grain transport obstruction. When grain transport was restored, the transportation volume could be gradually reduced according to the court's requirements, as long as it was no less than 100,000 dan per year.

Mason was extremely satisfied with the plan proposed by Mr. Zhao. How could he not be satisfied? The conditions offered by Zhao Hao were so generous that he was embarrassed!

ps. The feeling of starting over was too painful. For the whole day, my mind was filled with thoughts of who I was and what I was doing. It was only at night that I found the feeling of writing again.