Chapter 560: Water Control

The crest of the flood was so intense that one could not open their eyes; He Yuzhu gritted his teeth and, relying on his own strength, dragged the woman toward the shore with all his might.

On the bank, Ershuan and several workers gripped the rope and pulled back desperately, finally dragging both of them onto the shore.

As soon as the woman hit the ground, her body went limp, and she stopped breathing entirely.

"Oh no! She's gone!" the team medic Xiao Cao shouted in a panicked voice.

A chorus of gasps erupted all around, and the crowd instantly fell into chaos.

He Yuzhu, however, was not flustered in the slightest; he bent down and laid the woman flat on the dry ground.

"Everyone spread out, don't crowd around!"

He knelt on both knees, clasped his hands tightly together, aimed for the center of the woman's chest, and pressed down with force.

One, two, three...

After more than a dozen consecutive compressions, the woman still showed no response.

Xiao Cao slumped onto the ground, his face full of despair.

He Yuzhu's gaze darkened; he immediately pinched the woman's nose, lowered his head, and performed artificial respiration mouth-to-mouth.

After blowing in air, he immediately leaned down again to continue the chest compressions.

"What is Factory Director He doing? Why did he start kissing this woman?" a young worker muttered.

Ershuan raised his hand and slapped him: "This is called artificial respiration; it can bring a dead person back to life."

"What? Really?" a worker asked, his face full of confusion.

The six hundred people on the bank held their breath, staring fixedly at the scene.

After He Yuzhu had been performing compressions for another minute.

"Cough—cough cough!"

The woman suddenly choked out a few mouthfuls of yellow water, her chest began to rise and fall slightly, and she finally caught her breath!

Her eyelids slowly opened.

"She's alive!"

"She's alive! She's really alive!"

"Factory Director He is too amazing!"

Over six hundred cheers erupted instantly.

Five minutes later, the woman slowly sat up.

He Yuzhu supported her and said: "Comrade, don't move around yet, rest for a while longer."

The woman nodded weakly and looked at him: "Who... are you people?"

He Yuzhu smiled: "We are from Beijing, here at Bijiashan to reclaim wasteland."

The woman braced herself and sat up: "My name is Lv Hong, I am the Chief of the Water Conservancy Section of the county."

He Yuzhu cupped his hands: "So it is Chief Lv; I will have to rely on your help in the future."

Lv Hong gave a bitter smile: "That area around Bijiashan is all big water pits, why did you choose that place?"

"It wasn't our choice, it was assigned by our superiors. Why did you fall into the water?"

Lv Hong's expression darkened: "After we received the flash flood warning, we went to persuade the villagers living by the mountain to evacuate, but they wouldn't listen, and two villages were washed away by the flood. Please keep watch by the river; there might still be people drifting down."

He Yuzhu nodded, turned around, and took several lifebuoys and two military inflatable boats out of the vehicle.

Lv Hong's eyes lit up: "These inflatable boats of yours are so practical; could you give our Water Conservancy Bureau two of them?"

"No problem," He Yuzhu agreed readily. This batch of equipment was the stock he had saved back when he raided the M Military warehouse on Ryukyu Island.

The group kept watch by the river for several hours and indeed rescued five more people and salvaged quite a bit of livestock.

Looking at the surging floodwaters, He Yuzhu asked: "Chief Lv, besides this bridge, is there any other road we can take?"

"There is a stone arch bridge thirty kilometers upstream, but the road is not very easy to travel."

He Yuzhu looked up at the sky: "If we set off now, it will be dark by the time we reach the upstream, it seems we can only camp here for the night."

Lv Hong nodded: "The flood should be smaller tomorrow. I will go back to the county to find people and strive to get the bridge repaired within three days."

She stood up and walked around He Yuzhu's vehicle fleet; she had never even seen many of the vehicle models and machines, and she couldn't help but exclaim: "You all came prepared."

He Yuzhu laughed: "That goes without saying; I signed a military-style pledge to deliver fifteen million jin of grain to the Ministry next year."

Lv Hong looked at him in disbelief: "It's not that I want to dampen your spirits, but that land of yours is all mud pits; without digging a few large canals, you won't be able to farm at all."

He Yuzhu's heart sank, and he asked: "Even with these machines, it can't be reclaimed?"

Lv Hong shook her head: "It's very difficult."

When she watched the six hundred people finish setting up a neat row of tents in just one hour, her tone changed again: "However... looking at your setup, it might actually be possible to succeed."

Early the next morning, the team detoured to the upstream stone arch bridge and headed straight for the county seat.

With Lv Hong acting as a go-between, County Magistrate Guo Jinlin received them personally and was very enthusiastic.

After resting in the county for a day, the next day, led by Lv Hong and County Magistrate Guo, He Yuzhu and his party headed straight for their destination.

More than three hours later, the group finally arrived at the edge of the swamp.

It had just rained, and the entire swamp had become a vast expanse of water, with depths reaching one or two meters.

The six hundred workers looked at the vast water, their hearts turned cold, and their faces were full of disappointment.

Seeing everyone sighing, Lv Hong quickly comforted them: "Don't panic, everyone. In another twenty days, most of the water will recede, and the land will be exposed."

He Yuzhu, however, was calm and unhurried; he took two inflatable boats that could seat four people each off the vehicle.

He took Lv Hong and County Magistrate Guo onto one boat, while Ershuan took the key personnel from the factory onto the other.

On Ershuan's side, three technicians used poles to test the water depth.

He Yuzhu, meanwhile, turned on the scanning to carefully survey the area, hoping to find a place to dig a canal and drain the water out.

The group drifted on the water for two hours before reaching the shore.

He Yuzhu already had a plan in mind: to drain all the accumulated water, a Main Drainage Canal about ten kilometers long had to be dug in the center of this land.

"Factory Director He, do you still want this piece of land?" County Magistrate Guo asked.

He Yuzhu nodded and said loudly, "I have roughly figured out the terrain here. If we dig a main canal in the center of this land, this swamp can be turned into fertile fields!"

Yan Jiecheng leaned in: "Brother Zhuzi, with this vast expanse of water, what should we do first?"

He Yuzhu smiled and turned to look at County Magistrate Guo: "County Magistrate, besides this low-lying land, can we also reclaim the nearby wasteland that has no water?"

Guo Jinlin waved his hand: "As long as it's wasteland, you can reclaim as much as you want!"

A flash of light appeared in He Yuzhu's eyes, and he turned to the crowd and said loudly: "Did you all hear that? The land in the water is ours, and the land on the shore is also ours! Don't worry, the water will dry up one day!"

That evening, He Yuzhu cooked and made a pot of Boiled Fish using fish just caught from the lake.

Lv Hong ate it and couldn't stop praising: "Factory Director He, your skills are incredible. I have never eaten such fragrant fish!"

He Yuzhu took the opportunity to say: "Section Chief Lv is a professional in water conservancy. Can you stay and help guide us in digging the canal?"

County Magistrate Guo immediately made the decision: "Little Lv, you stay here for a while and help them!"

"No problem!" Lv Hong readily agreed.

He Yuzhu divided the six hundred people into six companies, with ten squads in each company.

He had these people use Plow Machines to reclaim dry plots of land, while he himself paddled a Kayak around the water surface every day.

Outsiders thought he was fishing to relax, but he was actually precisely measuring the best drainage route.

Two days later, he finished the survey and found the lowest water outlet.

Using the excavation function of his space, He Yuzhu spent 500 kilograms of gold to directly open an Underground Trench five thousand meters long.

Once the Underground Trench was opened, the water in the swamp drained out frantically.

Three days passed, and large areas of the swamp revealed black mud.

Looking at the scene before her, Lv Hong was stunned: "Little Factory Director He, this isn't right! According to past experience, it would take at least a month for this to happen. How did the water drain in just a few days this time?"

He Yuzhu casually brushed it off: "Maybe the river embankment was washed open."

Lv Hong did not suspect anything and nodded, believing him.

Another ten days passed, and the water in the swamp was basically drained, revealing a large area of black soil, with only sporadic small puddles left.

He Yuzhu gathered everyone and said: "The mud pond is very dangerous. Do not go to places that have not been surveyed. Ershuan, don't do anything else; take one hundred people and mark all the particularly deep mud ponds."

He Yuzhu personally drove a bulldozer to push out a construction path bit by bit.

Lv Hong followed him to the riverbank and finally discovered the secret—between the swamp and the river channel, there was an extra Underground Trench five kilometers long and two to three meters deep.

It was precisely this trench that drained the accumulated water completely.

In the blink of an eye, it was early September, the temperature was gradually dropping, and there was not much time left for land reclamation.

Once the land froze, it would be as difficult as ascending to heaven to reclaim it.

He Yuzhu made a prompt decision and divided the team into two groups: one group was responsible for reclaiming the dried-out land, and the other group went all out to dig the Main Drainage Canal. He went all out this time, assigning tasks every day, rewarding those who worked more, and giving out generous bonuses for exceeding quotas.

With material rewards and the help of machinery, the construction speed was very fast.

In just twenty days, the ten-kilometer main canal was fully excavated!

On the one hundred square kilometers of land, all the mud pits had been marked, and wooden fences had been built around them.

Lv Hong came to the construction site again, looked at the nearly one hundred square kilometers of fertile fields that had been reclaimed, and then looked at the clear, flowing main canal, and sincerely praised: "Factory Director He, your efficiency is too high! You actually managed to reclaim such a large piece of land!"