Chapter 29 32. Ingenious Strategies to Control Floods Show Their Skills

Kobayata had an idea, but the feasibility had yet to be determined. He did not elaborate with Kitabatake Daigaku, but said that he had a solution. So he and Kitabatake Daigaku went into the city to meet with Yamanouchi Yoshiharu and asked to call up 20 powerful gold diggers. Yamanouchi Yoshiharu did not ask the reason and directly agreed. (I hope this boss does not think that he has discovered a big gold mine or something to increase production. This is not easy to explain.)

Then a miner and 20 gold diggers from the Shinshino Gold Mine were mobilized to Kobayata's command. Kobayata knew that these gold diggers were not ordinary miners, but generally wealthy craftsmen. They usually responded to the military service of the daimyo like his uncle Tsunayoshi before. Although they were not samurai, they were also among the middle and high-income groups (of course, the powerful groups that directly owned gold mines were different. Their leaders and parents were often famous samurai. After all, they were rich, and the miners had organizations and equipment, which was very powerful). They also had experience in digging up the enemy's water veins and earth dragon attacks. (It is a pity that the Japanese also call this siege method "dong gong". It is probably taken from the meaning of digging holes to attack the city, but if you read the book in the Wu dialect area, you will find that the two words "dong gong" are pronounced as a disgusting human body part in Wu dialect. Since I am from Changzhou, Jiangsu, I will uniformly use the term "tulong gong" when talking about the underground siege method of "dong gong" in the future.)

Xiao Pingtai took them to the boulder and asked them to try to dig a deep tunnel to the other side. It does not need to be strong, as long as it can support the tunnel through.

Yes, Xiao Pingtai's method is to dig a tunnel to form a relatively large space underground, and then try to destroy the tunnel. Under the huge pressure of the upper river water and the boulder itself, they will automatically fall into the excavated tunnel, and finally the boulder will sink deep, so that it will no longer pose a hidden danger, and the river will return to calm.

The gold diggers first dug a deep pit of more than five meters down by the river. As expected, the water seepage was quite serious, and the construction environment was very unfriendly, but it was still barely operable. The soil is also relatively soft, and the support problem needs to be carefully considered and planned. Several gold diggers and miners discussed repeatedly and finally felt that it could be done.

After the feasibility certification, the gold diggers felt that they could do the construction in a certain way, so with the coordination and help of Kitabatake University, they mobilized a large number of wooden boards and logs, and then recruited 100 water stock members to start the construction together.

Dig down diagonally for about five meters on both sides at the same time, and then dig together, and Lianchuan will be about ten meters wide. Although the river channel is widened due to the presence of boulders here, it will not exceed fifteen meters. The total length of the tunnel is less than 30 meters. Xiao Pingtai also went down several times. It is true that due to the soft soil under the riverbed, a lot of support is needed, otherwise it is very easy to collapse.

Looking at the dripping tunnel, Xiao Pingtai couldn't help but worry about the gold diggers and water stock members working underground. However, a gold digger patted a thick log hard to reassure Xiao Pingtai. I dare not say such nonsense as "a prison that will last for ten thousand years" (but some of us dare to say that there will be no major flood in ten thousand years), but there will be no problem at all if we wait for ten days or half a month.

Xiao Pingtai thought that when people dig tunnels, they have to bear a mountain on their heads, which may be hundreds of millions of pounds or even billions of pounds. Now there is only a stone on their heads that weighs only hundreds of thousands of pounds, so there should be no problem. We are not leaders, so we don't need to command experts as laymen. We just need to listen to professionals. If they say there is no problem, Xiao Pingtai will not worry.

In less than ten days, the entire tunnel was connected. Xiao Pingtai first roughly estimated the location of the boulder, and then asked them to widen and deepen the tunnel in the estimated direction. To ensure that the boulder can sink deeply into the ground and not get stuck in the air.

Xiao Pingtai consulted the gold diggers on how to make the tunnel collapse quickly. The method is also very simple. Generally, when attacking a city, the attackers often suffer heavy losses against the tall city walls. But dig through the tunnel to the bottom of the city wall, then stop digging, try to dig loose the foundation of the city wall (if you encounter something like the Nanjing Ming City Wall, then this project is outrageous, the foundation of the Nanjing Ming City Wall is made of several meters thick stone strips, I really admire it), and then use high-quality hardwood as a temporary support. Finally, pile up half of the space with firewood, open a few vents above the tunnel for ventilation, and then put a fire in, no matter what city wall you are, it will burn down.

So the underground siege has been used a lot from ancient times to the present. In addition to destroying the city wall, it can also directly enter the city. This kind of earthwork operation is something that many generals can do, and it is a general siege technology method that is not very secretive.

And now the original disadvantage has become an advantage at the moment. The original tunnel was afraid of water seepage and collapse, so dozens of lives were explained to you at once. After all, you can't run away even if you want to in the ground.

But the soft soil of the riverbed is easy to collapse, which greatly facilitates Xiao Pingtai, who was going to destroy the tunnel. Now the two sides of the tunnel are completely connected, and the ventilation problem does not exist at all. Just think about destroying it quickly.

The first step is to evacuate people. Before evacuating, a large amount of straw and firewood are piled up. Then add a certain amount of combustion-supporting materials, such as oil. The main burning point is under the boulder, hoping to quickly burn down the tunnel.

The fire was lit quickly. The weather was already very dry. The fire in the tunnel was blown in by the wind from both sides, and the fire was scorching. It was very scary.

It only took a dozen or twenty minutes to see a lot of foam on the river surface, and the originally calm river surface also had slight waves. The ripples became bigger and bigger, and the water kept stirring the embankment left and right.

Suddenly, a series of dull sounds came, and the river water rolled up. After just a few breaths, there was a loud bang.

The boulder that had been firmly in the center of the river suddenly sank with a loud noise, and the river water made a thunderous sound. The entire ground seemed to have an earthquake, shaking violently, as if the boulder was roaring.

Even Yamanouchi Yoshiharu, who was in Fuchu Castle, hurried to avoid it, but with a burst of ash falling, the whole earth returned to calm.

At the same time, Lianchuan also calmed down, and the originally turbulent river surface continued to flow downstream calmly as if nothing had happened.

Kitabatake University, who was watching all this, stood quietly on the embankment in silence, and a momentum of man conquering nature emerged. He ran over and held Xiao Pingtai's hand tightly, and was so excited that he couldn't speak, but just held Xiao Pingtai's hand again and again.

After hearing the news, Yamanouchi Yoshiharu also rushed to the river after pacifying the castle, watching the huge stone that had been standing in the center of Lianchuan for decades suddenly disappear, and his face was full of unspeakable surprise.

I was wondering whether it would be better to do two chapters a day for more than 2,000 yuan, or one chapter for more than 3,000 to 4,000 yuan.