Chapter 548: Rain in the Box
At noon, Li Daoxuan was engrossed in a bowl of shredded pork with fungus over rice, munching away at his computer. Consequently, he hadn't "co-sensed" into the box to stir up mischief.
The box's perspective was currently locked onto Xing Honglang's group. They were approaching a conflict zone, on the verge of clashing with rebels at any moment, so he naturally needed to pay close attention.
Xing Honglang's detachment had just arrived at a small river. From outside the box, Li Daoxuan observed the river—it was incredibly narrow, a pitiful trickle with barely any water. He mused, "This must be some unnamed stream, right?"
Just as the thought crossed his mind, he heard Xing Honglang point at the meager waterway. "This is the famous Fen River," she declared, "the mother river of our Shanxi people."
Gao Chuwu gasped. "What? Such a tiny bit of water? And it's a mother river? Just how many Shanxi people are there, then?"
Xing Honglang couldn't help but smile wryly. "This river was once mighty, but alas..."
Li Daoxuan shoveled another mouthful of rice into his mouth, then, freeing a hand, typed "Fen River" into his computer and hit search. The information poured in!
It turned out that in ancient times, the Fen River truly was a colossal waterway, with numerous tributaries that nourished the entirety of Shanxi, earning it the title of the mother river of the Shanxi people. Its navigation capabilities were also excellent, once boasting the magnificent sight of "ten thousand rafts descending the Fen." However, over time, deforestation along its banks led to soil erosion and a drastic reduction in water volume. By the Ming Dynasty, ships could only sail on it in "autumn and summer, while in winter and spring, earth bridges served as crossings."
Furthermore, in the current Little Ice Age, a great drought gripped the land, bringing even less rainfall. Adding to that, it was the winter of Chongzhen's fourth year, nearly the fifth, which was naturally a dry season. With multiple factors combined, the poor Fen River was left with only a meager flow, a truly awkward sight.
Hearing this, Li Daoxuan let out an "Oh!" of surprise. "It connects to Pingyang Prefecture? That makes things interesting." He opened his map software and indeed, the Fen River led straight to Pingyang Prefecture. It was simply that his view within the box hadn't yet expanded to Pingyang Prefecture, so he couldn't see it for himself.
This sparked a quiet idea in Li Daoxuan's mind: the only government troops currently stationed in Pingyang Prefecture were Wang Xiaohua's unit. With no other officials present, the prefecture was effectively under the control of Gao Family Village. Wang Xiaohua had also been diligently working to cultivate a good reputation there. Gao Family Village had been transporting grain to Wang Xiaohua via land routes, but land transport was clearly no match for water. The problem was, the Fen River was like a small ditch, only navigable in summer, rendering it useless in winter and spring. This was quite inconvenient.
It seemed he would have to employ some methods to make the river navigable for boats. He took out a ruler and measured the Fen River in the box. Ten centimeters!
The downstream section of this river was actually less than ten centimeters wide. Converted, that meant it was only about twenty meters wide in the Ming Dynasty.
And that was the downstream section. How much narrower would it be upstream and in the middle? Li Daoxuan walked to his balcony, grabbed a small gardening shovel, and gestured with it towards the box. "One scoop from me, and the river channel would at least double in width!"
However, simply widening the channel wouldn't be enough; it also needed water! During the natural disasters of the late Ming Dynasty, water scarcity was a major issue. Merely widening the riverbed without accumulating water would be pointless.
Li Daoxuan was pondering this very problem...
Suddenly, he noticed something amiss.
Inside the box...
It was raining!
It wasn't rain he had conjured; it was real. Rain was actually falling.
"Huh? What?"
He had been watching the box for years, observing widespread disasters and people struggling to survive. This was the first time he'd ever witnessed rain falling inside it.
From Li Daoxuan's perspective, watching the rain inside the box was quite interesting. The rain "suddenly materialized" from the position of the box's lid, drifting down towards the ground within. It was a heavy downpour, coming down in sheets.
Xing Honglang's group was slowly trekking along the Fen River when, all of a sudden, a heavy rain began to fall from the sky. It truly startled these people who had endured a long drought.
Their first reaction was, "Has the Heavenly Lord sent rain?"
However, they looked up and saw no dragon heads of the Dragon Kings of the Four Seas.
Gao Chuwu exclaimed, "Wow, this time the Heavenly Lord didn't ask the Dragon Kings to bring the rain!"
Zheng Daniu added, "How peculiar!"
Lao Nanfeng rolled his eyes. "How strange! You actually find rain peculiar? Have years of drought driven you all mad? Rain is a perfectly normal occurrence, you know."
Zao Ying retorted, "I'd believe you if you weren't flailing your arms while saying that."
After exchanging some banter, the group burst into laughter, gazing up at the sky. "Hahahahaha, it's raining!"
At this moment, Li Daoxuan was rapidly shifting his perspective, scanning every area within his field of view. It was indeed raining, a widespread rainfall across Shanxi, Shaanxi, and the upper reaches of the Yellow River—multiple locations were experiencing precipitation.
Only then did he realize that despite the devastating Little Ice Age, it wasn't completely without rain; it did occasionally fall. With this rain, the water volume of the Fen River... it seemed it would increase. His small shovel, then, might just come in handy.
Li Daoxuan chuckled to himself as he looked at the Fen River's meager, ten-centimeter-wide riverbed.
Meanwhile, Xing Honglang's group was still trudging slowly along the riverbank in the heavy rain. As they walked, Xing Honglang complained, "If the Fen River regained its former navigability, we wouldn't have to walk so hard. We could just sit on a boat, eating hot pot and singing songs, and easily reach Pingyang Prefecture."
Lao Nanfeng scoffed. "Hahahaha, you jest. How is that possible? People have been cutting down trees along this dilapidated river for years, and all the mud and sand have flowed to the bottom, silting it up and blocking everything. How could a boat navigate that?"
No sooner had he finished speaking than he felt the rain above his head suddenly lessen.
Lao Nanfeng blinked. "Huh? Is the rain letting up?"
Xing Honglang corrected him, "No! Something is blocking the rain; it hasn't lessened."
Zao Ying urged, "Look up!"
They all looked heavenward together and saw the clouds part. A colossal golden hand, clutching an enormous shovel, descended from the sky. Both the hand and the shovel were immense, completely shadowing the rain above their heads.
"What is the Heavenly Lord doing?"
"That huge shovel must be an immortal artifact!"
Under their collective gaze, the great shovel swept down, plunging into the river channel some distance ahead. With a gentle scoop, a mountain-sized mound of silt, previously accumulated at the riverbed, was dug out.
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