Yaojiayan, Kunshan.

There were flashes of lightning and thunder, heavy rain, and it became pitch black in broad daylight.

The raging flood rushed down from Taihu Lake, rolled all the way to Kunshan, and fiercely hit the banks of the Wusong River.

Amid the roar of huge waves, Zhao Shouzheng, wearing a raincoat and leaning on a wooden stick, stood on the crumbling river embankment, staring at the vast and boundless water in front of him.

"The entire Kunnan has turned into a lake." Mr. Zhao finally realized the power of heaven and earth. "The water level has risen by at least one person's height since I took office."

"It's a good thing that Kunnan released floodwaters, otherwise our earthen embankment would not be able to withstand the flood." Zheng Ruozeng, wearing a straw raincoat and leaning on a wooden stick, stood beside Zhao Shouzheng with the support of his son.

"But if you hadn't mobilized the entire county in time to reinforce the river embankment, I'm afraid the embankment would have burst today!"

"It's meaningless unless we can hold out until the summer harvest!" Zhao Shouzheng's official robe was covered in mud, and he was wearing a pair of large shorts underneath, with his bare feet on wooden clogs. He looked as miserable as he could be.

Zheng Ruozeng was not much better than him. His whole body was covered in mud and he looked like a nobody.

On this muddy river bank, even if you are wearing clogs and have someone to support you, falling is a common occurrence.

Behind the two men, on and below the dike, countless Kunshan people carried sandbags and earth baskets, tirelessly reinforcing the defense line.

The deafening shouts and calls were equally loud as the roaring sound of the water.

Although it was raining heavily, the ground was muddy, and everyone was exhausted, they gritted their teeth and persisted.

There is still half a month before the summer harvest. If the dam collapses at this time, all our efforts will be wasted!

The results of the desperate efforts of tens of thousands of people were obvious; the original embankment had already been submerged by the flood.

However, the river embankment built with hundreds of thousands of sandbags and hundreds of thousands of baskets of sand is nearly ten feet higher than before, and is wider and stronger. Most sections of the river can withstand the test of floods.

But floods always break out from a small point, and they don't treat you equally. In several important sections of the embankment, the danger is still very serious!

Yaojiayan, guarded by Bai Zhubu and Gu Dadong, is the first big bend of the Wusong River after it enters Kunshan.

The river channel is sharply bent and the water flow is extremely fast. It is one of the important dangerous sections of the entire Wusong River and the first of the four dangerous sections in Kunshan County.

Zhao Shouzheng and Zheng Ruozeng were inspecting the river bank when they received an emergency call from two people saying that there was a dangerous situation at Yaojiayan!

He quickly named reserve captain Zheng Qian, who led two thousand civilians to rush to reinforce.

Mr. Zhao was still worried, so he handed over the defense of Nanshan Temple to Zheng Ruozeng and Xu Wei, and took 500 people with him to check it out.

When he got off the horse and was pulled up to the river bank by everyone, he saw that at the bend of the river where the impact was most severe, the bamboo and wooden guardrails on the outside had disappeared without a trace.

The flood had dug out a hole about ten feet wide at the angle where the wall was reinforced!

The people who were helping with the disaster relief tried their best to throw sandbags into the hole, but with so many sandbags, it was like throwing a handful of beans, and they were washed away by the rapids in an instant.

Seeing that no matter how he tried to save the situation, it was of no use, Bai Zhubu sat down on the ground.

"The power of heaven and earth cannot be resisted by human power..."

The eyes of Zhao Shouzheng and Gu Dadong also dimmed, and the three knew that the dam would burst soon.

Gu Dadong looked back at his son Gu Guishou and whispered to him to go back and see if there was anyone else in the town who had not been evacuated.

The Gu family’s ancestral home is located in Gujia Town, less than five miles north of Yaojiayan.

Once the dam breaks, it will flood the town in less than a meal time.

Gu Guishou hurried down the embankment and almost bumped into someone.

"Is there no other way?" Looking at the hole that had expanded to more than ten feet, Zhao Shouzheng looked up at the sky in despair.

"Son, help me..."

“Stop throwing sandbags!”

As Master Zhao finished praying, he looked up at the sky and heard a confident voice coming from afar:

“Fill baskets with stones and carry them up the embankment, then string the baskets together with bamboo poles and throw them down!”

Mr. Zhao wiped the rain off his face and saw that the person who spoke was a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties, who walked up the embankment as if walking on flat ground.

Wu Cheng'en accompanied the man up the embankment and explained to Zhao Shouzheng:

"This is Pan Zhongcheng, the county magistrate of Wucheng County, who is in mourning. Hearing that the county is in urgent need of help due to the flood, he has come to help!"

"Oh, Prime Minister Pan!" Upon hearing this, Zhao Shouzheng and Gu Dadong rushed forward to pay their respects as if they had seen a savior.

"No time for politeness, just do it!" Prime Minister Pan shouted without any hesitation. "Is there no one in Kunshan County who knows what's going on? Let you guys mess around?!"

Zhao Shouzheng did not take it as an offense at all. Instead, he seemed to have found a backbone and asked Bai Zhubu to do it immediately.

Because this man is Pan Jixun, the Prime Minister of Rivers. He is the one who can tame the Yellow River, which is ten times more violent!

No one in the world knows more about water management than him!

"Don't crowd so many people on the dike. They're like headless flies, useless and a nuisance!" Pan Jixun gave a second order:

"Assign half of the people to build a moon dike outside the dike, just in case!"

"Tear down the houses nearby immediately. I need 20 wooden beams!" Pan Jixun issued a third order to Gu Dadong. "Send all the bricks and stones here!"

"Okay, okay!" Gu Dadong responded and hurried to do it himself.

"Then what should I do?" asked Zhao Shouzheng, who was wearing shorts.

"Stand aside and don't get in the way." Pan Jixun glanced at him and went straight to direct the rescue work.

"The Pan Zhongcheng you invited? He has done a great job!" Mr. Zhao smacked his lips and smiled at Wu Chengen, "By the way, Pan Zhongcheng's family is in Wucheng, which is a neighboring county of Changxing."

"I didn't invite him." Wu Cheng'en shook his head and said, "It's true that the two counties are adjacent, but he returned home last year to mourn his father, and I was already in prison, so we haven't met."

"Then how did he get here?" Mr. Zhao asked curiously, "There is Jiaxing Prefecture between Huzhou Prefecture and Suzhou Prefecture."

"He came to look for the young master." Wu Cheng'en whispered, "Seeing that the young master was not here, he asked me to accompany him to the embankment."

"So it was the monkey... Oh no, it was the reinforcements my son brought..." Master Zhao shed tears of happiness.

I am probably the reincarnation of a good man who has done good deeds for ten generations, right?

Otherwise, how could I be so blessed to have such a precious son who would help me whenever I encounter difficulties, no matter where I am?

"I don't know how the young master tricked the great Prime Minister Pan into coming here." Wu Cheng'en muttered. He was so busy these days that he wanted to go back to jail.

"Who cares? As long as the person is here, it's fine. I don't care if he was tricked or kidnapped." Mr. Zhao laughed and said, "I'm finally not so anxious anymore!"

ps. Chapter 3 is still available today, please give me monthly tickets and recommendation tickets~