Chapter 6947 River Embankment

Chapter 6947 River Embankment
"Yes, in essence, this is a moral dispute, but both I and Cyprian, who later deconstructed my current system, actually know that the other party's approach is correct, but there is a degree involved." Chen Xi explained with a sigh.

"I think my degree is at the most appropriate level, but Cyprian may not agree. I have no way to refute this, but as long as there is a Guan Zhong or a me, Cyprian's degree cannot be considered correct." Chen Xi saw Liu Bei's thoughtful expression and continued to explain, "But Cyprian's logic is fundamentally more correct than mine and Guan Zhong's."

"What's wrong?" Chen Xi looked at Liu Bei's frowning brows and asked curiously.

"I'm just curious why you mentioned Guan Zhong." Liu Bei said with a smile.

"To be honest, Guanzi is the most capable among all the prime ministers, and he has enough integrity and morality. Li Kui, Wu Zi, and Shang Jun, although they are also powerful, but to be honest..." Chen Xi whispered to Liu Bei, not daring to speak too loudly for fear that Wu Qi would hear.

From ancient times to the present, there have been too many people on the road to making the country strong and the people rich, but if we really have to say, they can be roughly divided into the extremely rare ones who are moral and capable and others. In the environment where Chen Xi is, probably only Guan Zhong is both moral and capable.

What about the other guys? From the perspective of the country, it is absolutely not the case, but from the perspective of the people, it is really too much.

After all, in the feudal era, the route taken was basically to make the country strong. Whether the people were rich or not was not important to the bigwigs who managed the country. Take Shang Yang, the most famous reformer, as an example. The route he took was undoubtedly to make the country strong and the people weak, with only one source of profit. If the people wanted to develop, they could only rely on farming and fighting, and all other means were blocked by Shang Yang.

It’s not that this policy was completely wrong. After all, the Qin State was almost destroyed. If they wanted to survive, the fastest and most effective way to gather strength was to work together as one.

This was also the key to Qin's rapid crushing of all surrounding opponents, because with this set of gameplay, regardless of whether the people were poor or not, the country's ruling power and the upper limit of its mobilization were indeed greatly enhanced.

However, from Chen Xi's point of view and the current social environment of the Han Dynasty, there is no need for such policies, the construction of a moral system, and the logic of strengthening the country and enriching the people. Chen Xi has to talk about these. Letting ordinary people enjoy the dividends brought by the country's prosperity is a matter of course in Chen Xi's view.

However, these actions must be actively promoted by the national government and spread from top to bottom in the process of building the moral system and institutions.

Because Chen Xi still needs such an organization with strong management capabilities, even if this organization can deprive individuals of many personal rights if necessary. Even after Chen Xi retires, with the development of the times, this organizational entity will inevitably be alienated and infiltrated, and then seize the power of the grassroots individuals until entering the next cycle.

Even so, Chen Xi will still maintain this organization, because without such an organization, the resources that Chen Xi can mobilize and the great achievements that he can build are very limited, and the upper limit left by history will be talked about countless times by future generations, and will also force those people with lofty ideals to align themselves with that most prosperous era.

In other words, as long as Chen Xi leaves behind a peak with detailed records, even if the Han Dynasty collapsed and the Han cultural circle was reshuffled, there will still be countless people who miss that era and want to achieve revival. Even if the new era is not called Han, as long as this spirit and heritage are passed down, there will definitely be people who will do everything they can to inherit and surpass it.

Therefore, Chen Xi's Tao is indeed no match for Siprian's in terms of human hearts. After all, Siprian's Tao is the most basic and fundamental desire of human beings, but Chen Xi's Tao far crushes Siprian's Tao in terms of the upper limit of human ideals - after I achieve Taoism, future generations will naturally pursue it and thus achieve Taoism!
To put it bluntly, it is just the difference between ideal and reality. Chen Xi can actually rely on his own morality, his own ability, and this huge centralized organization to perform peak operations that are close to the level of a sage monarch's dictatorship, and then create a long prosperous era lasting for a hundred years, leaving an unavoidable brilliant glory in the history of the ages for future generations.

Therefore, even if Cyprian's teachings were correct, and even if they were more suitable for continuation and more suitable for ordinary people from the perspective of human nature and law, Chen Xi would not let Cyprian come to Chang'an to display his teachings.

At this point in the world, there are not many people who can really cause trouble for Chen Xi, but if Siplian were to preach in Chang'an, it would take Chen Xi a while to clean up. After all, sometimes the correct laws are inappropriate. In this era, success depends on people.

"Zichuan." After Chen Xi finished speaking, Liu Bei sighed and looked at Chen Xi, somewhat sighing, "What do you think of my morality, Liu Bei?"

"Although he is not a saint, he is indeed a moral role model. He can uphold his original heart and nature in troubled times. Without Lord Xuande, troubled times would just be troubled times." Chen Xi told the truth.

"Too high, too high. What I want to say is that you mentioned morality because you can balance it. In the past, I am afraid that only Guanzi can balance it. The situations faced by others..." Liu Bei sighed, "It is not so easy for them to balance morality and reality. In troubled times, even if you want to uphold your moral integrity, sometimes you have to dirty your hands and your heart."

"Some people may be using this banner, but some people really want to save the people from the dire situation, but this road cannot be clean." Liu Bei looked at Chen Xi with some sighs and complexity, "Zichuan, you can consider things like morality and decency in troubled times only because you are too strong."

"Oh, okay." Chen Xi thought about it and felt that he had to accept this to some extent. Although he really felt that Wu Zi and Shang Jun had other choices when they carried out the reform, they really chose the most vicious and cruel route, probably because they were eager for quick success.

"So talents like Siplian can only be kept in the Yuan family?" Liu Bei said with some regret.

"He is one of the human stars. If he comes to Chang'an, he will fight with me sooner or later, which will be a huge problem." Chen Xi said helplessly. To put it bluntly, his current set is the kind of Saint King dictatorship with the upper limit bursting, which is incompatible with Xipulian's set.

"Fight with you?" Liu Bei was speechless. "Forget it, transfer Xu Ziyuan to Chang'an. His ability is actually quite suitable."

"Xu Ziyuan, Chen Changwen, and Zhang Zibu, indeed, having these three in Chang'an to maintain the homeland is enough. In fact, Chen Changwen and Zhang Zibu are enough." Chen Xi nodded and felt that Liu Bei's suggestion was good.

"Since we have recruited Cao and Sun, it would be bad if we don't recruit the Yuan family." Liu Bei said with a smile.

What's wrong with it? To put it bluntly, by the twelfth year of Yuanfeng, we should show Yuan, Cao and Sun Liang their true strength and let them know the current status of the Han Dynasty. Don't think that you have some capital and then have some small thoughts. You have to know who is the father and who is the son!

After all, how would Rome feel when the prosperous Kushan Empire was defeated and destroyed by the Han Dynasty? It had to resort to some tricks. At this time, if some guys were not strong-willed and made some small moves, the scene would be a bit unpleasant.

In a word, even if your Yuan family is canonized as the Duke of the Eastern European Border County by Rome, you have to recognize who is the father. As for this, Liu Bei is not worried about Yuan Tan as a person, Liu Bei is only worried about Yuan Tan's subordinates!

Of course, these subordinates may not necessarily be capitulationists, but in some matters, Liu Bei would not allow even surrender or speculation.

"That's fine. This will free up Kong Ming and the others. This battle is still very important." Chen Xi nodded. He had to show it once in a while, what it means that the princes are also vassal states of the Han Dynasty!
"Oh, there is one more thing I forgot to mention before. It was the news brought by Shuzhi's personal guard Wu Ken, saying that Nangui is absorbing the power of water and earth gods and Buddhas, but it does not seem to be using it in the Ganges River Basin. It asked us to be careful in the rear. It is said that if Nangui is defeated and special means are used to attack the Yellow River embankment in the summer, it will have some impact." Liu Bei thought for a while and explained.

"Wu Aochen?" Chen Xi recalled that Chen Dao seemed to have such a personal guard, but the news was somewhat strange. Where did he get this thing that should be very confidential? It shouldn't be possible.

"Yes, that guy." Liu Bei nodded and said, "He said he got it from a god, so he came to report it. But he didn't have accurate information, only this piece of news. He didn't know anything about the plan. He also felt that the Yellow River embankment was well prepared and it was unlikely to have any accidents, so he just passed on the news."

"Okay, I got it. I will ask the water envoys, river bank visitors, water balance commanders, and river bank commanders in the Yellow River Basin to patrol more often." Chen Xi nodded. There really were a lot of people deployed in the Yellow River Basin these days. After all, the mother river, the Yellow River, was somewhat outrageous. Fortunately, these days, with the means left by the big guys, the Yellow River basically never flooded.

"I think you can recruit more fishermen. Many veterans actually like fishing very much. You can arrange them to be water messengers, such as those two guys." Liu Bei pointed at Jiang Chen and Zhang Chen who had already gathered with Empress Xiao in the small world, "Why don't you arrange Zhang Chen to be the Leling Wei? You can arrange him to be the river bank visitor. He is on the river bank every day. Believe it or not, he may be there even in the middle of the night."

Chen Xi had nothing to say. After all, Zhang Chen was a fifth-level progressive meritorious official. He was also from Jizhou and had made great contributions in the Jizhou case. He had enough strength, so it was natural for him to be transferred to a rank of more than two thousand stones. If he was sent to be a river bank envoy, even if it was the top position, it would only be less than a thousand stones, which would be cut in half.

"Don't take rank so seriously. You have paid them enough salary. Rank is not important to them. Zhang Chen has been reported to Bo Ning for being the lieutenant of Leling. When he was the Sima of another department before, it was okay as long as there were others to take his place. But now he is the lieutenant of Leling, which is basically dereliction of duty." Liu Bei said with a sigh.

"Some people are actually not suitable to be a captain. Is fishing really that interesting?" Liu Bei said to Chen Xi, turning his head to look at him.

"In this case, Lord Xuande can make the arrangements himself. I really don't understand these people. To be honest, it's only by mentioning fishing that I can figure out who Zhang Chen is." Chen Xi said helplessly.

"Our system is that after you retire from the army, I will review and release you. After you enter the local area, you will serve as a bureaucrat and then follow the path of bureaucratic promotion." Liu Bei said very seriously.

"After that, all promotion documents related to retired soldiers will be sent to Lord Xuande for review." Chen Xi waved his hand. This matter was too simple. "By the way, are there many fishermen among the veterans? When I arranged the Dushui messengers and the river bank visitors before, I looked at whether their hometowns were close to the river, but did not consider this aspect."

"Quite a lot. I don't know what's going on. More and more people like fishing. But some people also report that some old soldiers have no morals. When they can't catch any fish, they just blow up the river." Liu Bei said with some complexity. All we can say is that times are changing, but the logic of behavior really doesn't change.

"Is that so? Then let's arrange for those who like fishing to be water officials. The Yellow River needs a lot of water officials anyway." Chen Xi thought for a while and said that at least several hundred water officials must be arranged for the entire Yellow River basin before everyone can feel at ease. After all, the Yellow River is really terrible.

Although Chen Xi actually knew very well that the flooded Yellow River no longer existed at this point in time, since Wang Jing organized people to repair the Yellow River more than a hundred years ago, there had been basically no floods in the Yellow River in the following eight hundred years.

Do you know what a genius is? There is no genius of this level. Why is the Wang family of Lelang known as one of the three major water conservancy families together with the Li family of Sichuan and Shu, and the Sang family of Luoyang? Do you understand the value of "Wang Jing's river management for a thousand years without any trouble"? This is the Yellow River. After Wang Jing completed the repair, there was no major change in course for a full eight hundred years, and the number of breaches was also very small, and all of them were caused by human factors.

Of course, the dike built by Wang Jingxiu has only been used for more than a hundred years. People in the Central Plains are still quite afraid of it, fearing that it will be collapsed by the Yellow River at any time. This is why there are a large number of river dike envoys, water envoys, and Hengshui commanders on the Yellow River. This is a bloody lesson.

Generally speaking, before Wang Jing repaired the Yellow River, these water officials mainly focused on the hydrology of the Yellow River. The state sent water officials to observe the Yellow River and record the hydrological data, which were then transferred to the Grand Historian to let the Gan and Shi families compare the hydrological data to see whether the Yellow River would hit the Central Plains in the next two years.

After Wang Jing repaired the Yellow River, the task of the water officials gradually changed from recording hydrological data to seeing who was messing around with the king's levee. This is why the water officials initially served as river levee visitors, but later became river levee commanders. Because the Yellow River did not flood for hundreds of years after Wang Jing repaired the river, the duties of the water officials changed from preventing floods to guarding the levees left behind by the king.

The former collects hydrological data, while the latter is a professional worker!
By the way, the scale of the water officials in the early days was very large. During the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, it was necessary to set up left and right water envoys in the central government to manage the water officials in the world.

There was no other way. During the reign of Emperor Wu, the Yellow River burst its dike so violently that it lasted for more than ten years. Finally, when Emperor Wu passed by, he went to the breach himself and led the three dukes and nine ministers to carry firewood to block the breach. After that, he built a temporary palace at the location of the breach, which was the Xuanfang Palace.

To be honest, since the Xuanfang Palace was built for the breached Huzikou, there has been no more breaches at Huzikou...

However, the Yellow River problem in the Western Han Dynasty was never solved. During the reign of Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Yellow River began to assault the Central Plains again. Wang Jing then wrote to Emperor Ming, detailing his method of water control. Emperor Ming was greatly impressed and thought it was very feasible, so he fully supported Wang Jing in repairing the Yellow River.

Then, with the consent of Emperor Ming of Han, Wang Jing mobilized hundreds of thousands of soldiers and more than 10 billion yuan to completely solve the Yellow River flood problem.

Of course, this was Wang Jing's report. People at that time did not realize that Wang Jing was telling the truth. He did solve the Yellow River flood problem. Most bureaucrats at the time, and even Emperor Ming, actually thought that a success would be considered a success if they invested hundreds of thousands of soldiers and tens of billions of dollars and maintained the solution for a hundred years.

However, the subsequent facts are that Wang Jing was not talking nonsense. After he completed the repair, there was no major flood in the Yellow River for 800 years. As for changing the course, it never happened. The subsequent problems occurred directly in the Song Dynasty.

It's just that people are still cautious about the Yellow River these days. After all, history books record that it suffered too severe a beating. Therefore, the number of water officials is arranged according to the maximum value. That is, there is a person in charge at the level of a minister in the central government, there are people on the river bank, there are people on patrol, and when necessary, tens of thousands of people can be mobilized at any time to repair and guard the bank. This is a historical legacy left by Emperor Wu of Han. Although subsequent Han emperors made changes, they did not make major changes in this regard.

According to official history, until the Wei and Jin Dynasties, because there had been no problems with the Yellow River for nearly two hundred years, the size and rank of the Du Shui Guan were reduced, and he became the Water Cao among the twenty-three Caos under the Shangshu Tai. Later in the Jin Dynasty, the Yellow River still did not flood, and the status of the Water Cao continued to decline, and his size was greatly reduced. There was even a situation where there were only a few small officials in the Du Shui Tai.

By the Sui Dynasty, the rank was downgraded from the Du Shui Tai of the Ministry of Works to the Du Shui Jian, and then to the Du Shui Ling. Anyway, the Yellow River had always been fine, so it didn't matter.

This policy was continued in the Tang Dynasty. However, in the late Tang Dynasty, due to too little repair and war, the Yellow River began to show its power. The rank of water officials gradually increased. By the Song Dynasty, the Yellow River burst, and the number and rank of water officials began to increase, quickly returning to their original status.

After the Jin Dynasty occupied the Yellow River basin, it decisively continued the water official system of the Northern Song Dynasty and continued to strengthen it. It even directly issued an imperial decree to manage the Yellow River defense. However, at this time the Yellow River had entered the early stage of being out of control, and there was no great god to deal with it, so they could only watch the Yellow River take its course.

The Yuan Dynasty was even more direct. The Yellow River official was a third-rank official! Then the Yuan Dynasty died while repairing the river.

After the Ming Dynasty took over, it continued to raise the rank. The Shangshu personally took the initiative to repair the river, and after it was completed, he was admitted to the cabinet!
The temple continued to be repaired during the Qing Dynasty and its scale continued to expand.

In short, human history is a repetition. However, no matter how it repeats itself, in the era in which Chen Xi lived, the Yellow River was at its most maternal. At least there were basically no floods. As for the levee built by Wang Jingxiu, as long as it was well watched and no one was destroyed, there would basically be no problem.

However, Chen Xi still had to maintain the team of water officials. As far as Chen Xi remembered, in the late Tang Dynasty, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, a large part of the reason for the flooding of the Yellow River was the collapse of the water official system. A lot of information was lost, and the Yellow River had not been repaired for hundreds of years, so no one knew how to repair it. After Wang Jing's system was completely ruined, the Yellow River directly dealt a big blow to the Northern Song Dynasty!

Therefore, before Wang Jingxiu's dam was destroyed, Chen Xi still wanted to keep this team, which seemed useless, and he would try his best not to let other people mess around with this team.

Just look at history and you will know that after the Yellow River burst again in the Northern Song Dynasty, it took later generations almost a thousand years to barely clean up the mess. In this case, it would be better to maintain this team, at least to employ tens of thousands more people. This is much better than spending a thousand years repairing the river every now and then, not to mention how much fertile land was submerged and how many people were drowned, just think about the cost.

"I was thinking about the news from Shu Zhi. When you conduct the verification next year, you can also take a look at the Yellow River embankment left by Wang Zhongtong to see if there are any problems. After all, it's almost 150 years old, and I'm a little worried." Liu Bei called out to Chen Xi, asking Chen Xi to take people to the Yellow River embankment to see if there are any hidden dangers when he goes back to verify the five northern states.

"Oh, okay, I'll go and take a look, and build a few temples for the king at the same time." Chen Xi thought for a while and said, there are temples for Wang Jing, but there are very few of them these days. After another hundred years, there will be more temples. When the Yellow River embankment collapses, there will be really more temples. After the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River have experienced hundreds of floods, Wang Jing will live in people's hearts.

"Yes, there hasn't been any trouble for over a hundred years, so it's indeed appropriate for the government to build a temple for sacrifice." Liu Bei thought for a moment and said, he also felt that it was not easy for the Yellow River to not have a flood for over a hundred years. As the builder of the levee, it was indeed appropriate for Wang Jing to build a temple for sacrifice along the Yellow River. "Next year when you do the verification, take people to the levee for a thorough inspection. If you are sure there is no problem, then build a temple for sacrifice and let the local officials perform the sacrifice according to the specifications."

"Okay, I'll take people to have a look then." Chen Xi nodded and said, although history has proven that Wang Jing's levee can last at least 800 years, what Liu Bei said is indeed correct, so it would be better to go and have a look. After confirming that there is no problem, it would be better to build the temple.

"We still need to pay attention to the patrols of the Yellow River, and arrange more river officials. After all, it has been more than a hundred years, and there might be some hidden dangers. Moreover, Wu Ken would not speak without a purpose. He must have some information channels when he comes to report. In this case, we should be more careful. Let the river embankment captain strengthen patrols and let everyone who can go to the embankment go to the embankment." Liu Bei said very cautiously.

Please stop sending me pictures of the Yellow River. I don’t think the Yellow River will overflow in this era. If you don’t understand, please check with Wang Jing. He is also a star of mankind. He proved that the Yellow River can be controlled, and it can be done in one step. All you need to do is follow his operating manual for maintenance. Unfortunately, the latecomers are too confident…

The Wang family of Lelang is the descendant of the Langya Wang family in my book, and they have appeared countless times. It seems that you really don’t read it, and you are still interfering in my book. I have already said that there will be no flood.
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(End of this chapter)