The mouth of Wuliu Creek was over a hundred zhang wide. The western bank was quite steep and deep, suitable for use as a natural river port and dock, but the Wuliu Creek channel itself was not conducive to boat traffic.
Wuliu Creek originated from the southern foot of Longya Mountain, flowing through the plateau southeast of Longya Mountain before finally entering the Yuan River. It was the most important river within Yushu Bay.
The Wuliu Creek channel twisted and turned for about forty-some li. The elevation drop along the channel was considerable. Not to mention autumn and winter—even in spring and summer, the swift current and treacherous shoals made it unsuitable for boat traffic.
More importantly, when Wuliu Creek emerged from Longya Mountain, it carried massive amounts of sediment that silted up the channel. The plateau it subsequently flowed through averaged twenty to thirty meters higher than the Yushu Bay alluvial plain to the west.
When Wuliu Creek’s waters surged in spring and summer, overflowing from the silted channel, the entire Yushu Bay would become a raging flood and suffer from inundation.
Beyond the Xi clan’s strict prohibition in earlier years against migrant refugees gathering at the southern foot of Longya Mountain, and the Yuan River’s sharp bend here creating extremely powerful currents, the special characteristics of Wuliu Creek were truly the primary obstacle and bottleneck that had prevented predecessors from cultivating Yushu Bay.
Han Qian had previously personally inspected Yushu Bay on site twice.
Over the past year, Han Qian had further ordered Ji Xiyao to thoroughly investigate the hydrology and geography of the southern foot of Longya Mountain, the banks of Wuliu Creek, and Yushu Bay. Before coming to Xuzhou this time, he had already formulated a plan to tame Wuliu Creek. The plan was to excavate a new canal where Wuliu Creek emerged from Longya Mountain, diverting Wuliu Creek’s waters westward into the Sha River that flowed through the heart of Yushu Bay.
However, during the spring and summer rainy seasons, to prevent the banks of the Sha River from being flooded by surging waters and causing disaster, they would need to build a diversion weir between the newly dug canal and the original Wuliu Creek, as well as construct an overflow weir on the old Wuliu Creek channel to regulate the upstream waters of Wuliu Creek in different seasons.
Once the entire water conservancy project was completed, during the autumn and winter dry seasons, the upstream waters of Wuliu Creek would be blocked by the overflow weir and forced to flow through the diversion weir and diversion canal into the Sha River, ensuring sufficient irrigation water for the fields cultivated in Yushu Bay even during the dry season. During the flood season, when massive amounts of floodwater rushed out from Longya Mountain and water levels surged, large volumes of water could pass through the overflow weir into the old Wuliu Creek channel and flow into the Yuan River.
The construction of the diversion weir and overflow weir had to be ingenious—ensuring that during the dry season the upstream waters could irrigate the grain fields within the bay, while also ensuring that during the flood season, the vast majority of upstream waters would be directed into the old Wuliu Creek channel without causing disaster to the grain fields within the bay.
A water conservancy project like Wuliu Creek couldn’t be called unprecedented in history. The Siming Mountain Weir built in Mingzhou by Chen Jitang’s father was not necessarily less complex than the Wuliu Creek Weir. But it was definitely not something that just any incompetent person would dare attempt to build in Xuzhou—to tame the wild and untamable Wuliu Creek.
At the very least, Xuzhou had not encountered such a capable water management official in a thousand years.
Since Wuliu Creek was unsuitable for navigation, after disembarking at the creek mouth, Han Qian led five to six thousand people on foot to where Wuliu Creek emerged from Longya Mountain.
On the west side of the river mouth, a small-scale earthen stockade had already been built. Inside the stockade were several somewhat decent wooden buildings, but outside the stockade were large expanses of messy shanties. When Han Qian led the crowd over, many disheveled people stood by Wuliu Creek watching curiously, their eyes also full of worry and fear.
After all, the five hundred armored soldiers of the newly formed State Battalion behind Han Qian radiated murderous intent—they were no mere decoration.
From the north side of the stockade, along the not particularly steep bank of Wuliu Creek, a small path led deeper into Longya Mountain. Han Qian knew that following this path into the mountains for over twenty li would bring one to the old Xi Stockade where the Xi clan had ancestrally resided.
After Feng Changyu exterminated the Xi clan, fearing pressure from the three great clans surnamed Yang, Xi, and Xiang, he ultimately hadn’t dared directly annex the old Xi Stockade. Instead, he destroyed and abandoned the stockade and sold the Xi clan members into slavery. For nearly ten years now, Longya Mountain had been ownerless territory, let alone the Yushu Bay at Longya Mountain’s southern foot.
Currently, only four to five hundred indigenous tribal people lived in over a dozen small stockades at the southern foot of Longya Mountain—they couldn’t be considered any real power. But the residents living in the large expanse of shanties at the Wuliu Creek river mouth were clearly not indigenous tribal people.
When Ji Xiyao discovered coal and iron ore in Longya Mountain, Han Qian ordered Ji Xiyao to occupy the old Xi Stockade under the pretext of recruiting refugees to mine coal and iron ore. He also built a stockade at the mouth where Wuliu Creek emerged from Longya Mountain. At this time, those living in shanties built around the stockade were mainly laborers hired to mine coal and iron ore in Longya Mountain and their families.
Seeing Han Qian lead a dense mass of troops over, Ji Xiyao had the stockade gates opened and came out joyfully to greet them: “The day before yesterday, someone from Qianyang came with news that Young Master had arrived in Xuzhou—Xiyao could hardly believe it! These past two days, several groups of people have come to spy on Wuliu Creek. Xiyao worried there might be trouble and, being timid by nature, gathered all the troops into the stockade to guard against changes. Xiyao failed to meet Young Master at the creek mouth—please punish me, Young Master!”
Currently, the mining and smelting of coal and iron ore in the mountains all employed hired refugees as workers. These people lived in crude shanties hastily erected around the perimeter of the stockade and had no loyalty to the Han family whatsoever.
Ji Xiyao worried that in these turbulent times, these refugees might take advantage of the chaos to loot the materials stockpiled in the stockade. He could only temporarily close the stockade to prevent trouble, not knowing that Han Qian, upon arriving in Xuzhou, would so quickly bring a large force directly here.
Han Qian introduced Chen Jitang, Zhao Qi, and others to Ji Xiyao.
“The situation in Qianyang is not yet settled—why has Young Master come to Longya Mountain in such haste?”
Ji Xiyao was full of hope that the Han family could establish independent control over Xuzhou. In his view, the most important thing now was for the Han family to stabilize the Qianyang situation. In the future, as long as they could truly achieve regional control over Xuzhou, it would never be too late to develop Longya Mountain and Yushu Bay.
Han Qian smiled: “Before the spring floods rise next year, we only have three months of construction time available to build the diversion weir. How could I dare delay in Qianyang City?”
To build the Wuliu Creek diversion weir, excavate canals, construct dwellings for so many people, expand the scale of coal and iron ore mining operations, and systematize new ironworking and steel refining processes, Han Qian not only brought Lin Haizheng, Chen Jitang, Du Yijun, Du Yiming, and others to Longya Mountain, but also brought Zheng Tong and the hundred-some craftsmen who had been deceived into coming along this time to Longya Mountain as well.
By this point, Zheng Tong had thoroughly seen through the “wolfish ambitions” of the Han father and son. But coerced to Xuzhou, he was like a homeless dog with no recourse.
Now he dared not disobey Han Qian’s will, yet he also feared that wholeheartedly serving Han Qian would implicate his family remaining in Jinling.
When Han Qian pointed at him to come forward and meet Ji Xiyao, Zheng Tong’s bark-like old face was full of bitterness, shrinking back timidly.
“You old fellow, making such a bitter face—who are you showing this to? Don’t tell me you’re afraid I’ll chop off your head,” Han Qian scolded with a stern face. “I’m now putting you in charge of managing the coal yard at Longya Mountain. As long as you can transport a hundred thousand jin of coal briquettes down the mountain each day, I won’t make things difficult for you. After one year, if you’re unwilling to remain in Xuzhou, I’ll send people to escort you back to Jinling to reunite with your family!”
Previously, Han Qian had transferred a batch of craftsmen to Xuzhou, but their numbers were limited after all. The coal yard Ji Xiyao had opened at Longya Mountain had also constructed water-powered coal crushing mills that produced twenty thousand jin of coal daily, barely sufficient to meet the downstream demands for lime, blue bricks, and raw iron smelting.
Currently, with Han Qian leading six thousand people to garrison at the Wuliu Creek river mouth, besides building the diversion weir, they also needed to construct a batch of large compound buildings combining defensive and residential functions, and needed to forge large quantities of tools. A mere twenty thousand jin of coal briquettes daily was already far from sufficient.
When establishing a base, fuel and grain were always the first challenges requiring concentrated effort to solve.
Although Zheng Tong was conservative and cautious by nature, in traditional craftwork trades he was considered a master craftsman. Han Qian didn’t waste words with him and directly assigned him the task.
In Zheng Tong’s view, he himself was being forced by Han Qian to take on responsibilities, which actually made it easier for him to accept psychologically.
Sure enough, after Han Qian’s scolding, Zheng Tong’s expression eased somewhat. He selected seven craftsmen familiar with coal yard operations and immediately followed people assigned by Ji Xiyao to head deeper into Longya Mountain to take over management of the coal yard.
Besides sending Lin Zongjing to lead a squad of armored soldiers to garrison the old Xi Stockade deep in Longya Mountain to guard against the possibility of enemy troops suddenly attacking from Chenyang County north of Longya Mountain, Han Qian led the remaining troops to establish camp at the river mouth.
Among the Feng family slaves, males aged sixteen to fifty and robust women aged twenty to forty totaled three thousand people.
At this moment, Han Qian paid no heed to their wailing. He forcibly organized them into sixty labor and logistics teams, distributing among them the sixty-some Left Bureau scouts with unstable loyalties and the remaining two hundred fifty Left Bureau subordinates whose families were all in Jinling to lead these sixty labor teams. Under the guidance of Craftsmen’s Battalion craftsmen, they undertook the heavy responsibility of quarrying stone, felling timber, excavating canals, building the diversion weir, and constructing compound buildings.
The Wuliu Creek diversion weir counted as high-tech work in this era, but the main work was still heavy physical labor.
Excavating canals and building the diversion weir and overflow weir would require excavating and moving approximately one million cubic meters of earth and stone to finally complete the entire project.
Calculating based on investing two thousand able-bodied laborers, to dig through the main canal within ninety days meant on average each person would need to excavate and transport six to seven cubic meters of earth and stone daily. Especially as the canal was dug deeper and deeper, climbing up and down and making hundreds of round trips each day—the hardship would be difficult for ordinary people to imagine.
Previously, among the Feng household’s slaves and servants, those who truly engaged in heavy physical labor were still a minority. More people mainly served as managers and stewards of warehouses, pawn shops, or estates. Even the maids and servants who directly served the Feng family members in the Feng residence did servant work, which was definitely not heavy physical labor.
Once the entire project unfolded, within three or four days over a hundred people had worked themselves to the point of coughing up blood.
Although over the past six months, at Han Qian’s instruction, Ji Xiyao had hired refugee laborers to build a coal yard, iron mine, charcoal kilns, lime kilns, brick kilns, and iron smelting facility in Longya Mountain, he was limited by Xuzhou’s shortage of skilled craftsmen, Ji Xiyao’s own insufficient prestige, and the limited resources he could deploy. Many things were still very crude.
The first thing Han Qian did upon arriving at Longya Mountain was take Du Yijun, Du Yiming, and others, along with a batch of craftsmen deceived from Jinling, into the mountains to systematize this work, while entrusting the construction of the diversion weir and excavation of canals to Lin Haizheng and Chen Jitang.
Han Qian first roughly reviewed the coal yard, iron mine, lime kilns, brick kilns, iron smelting facility, and other operations built in the mountains. He left Du Yijun in the mountains to assist Zheng Tong in presiding over these matters, then led people back out of the mountains to the river mouth—this was already ten days later.
By this time, three Feng family slaves had already worked themselves to death.
Even though Tian Cheng led four hundred elite armored soldiers stationed at the river mouth to maintain order and no Feng family slaves dared openly rebel, morale was so low that it was difficult to keep the project progressing rapidly and sustainably.