Chapter 498 - 328: The Yellow River’s Roar, The Earth Pivot’s Sacred Manifestation
Chapter 498: Chapter 328: The Yellow River’s Roar, The Earth Pivot’s Sacred Manifestation
The difficulty of dredging the Yellow River is self-evident, as a poem attests:
"Through fractured stone and clouds, by narrow gorges bound,From shattered cliffs, a furious, white-capped torrent pounds.The Suspended River hangs, a sword of direst threat,By deep-sunk silt transformed to hills of mud and wet.The flood crests surge like untamed horses, wild and free,The old course shifts, bringing all humanity misery.A thousand years of troubles stretch for endless miles,The Earth Pivot cannot tame the water dragon’s wiles."
In the past two thousand years, the Yellow River has undergone six major course changes. The most recent occurred during the Ming and Qing dynasties, when the river shifted from flowing south into the Yellow Sea to flowing north into the Bohai Sea.
Drought in the dry season and floods in the rainy season. The upstream waters are steep and turbulent, while downstream lies an eight-hundred-li stretch of the Suspended River.
To this day, the threat of flooding from the Yellow River has never been truly resolved.
This is especially true in the Kaifeng and Xinxiang regions, where the highest points of the Suspended River are 13 and 23 meters above ground level, respectively—a true case of "the Yellow River’s waters flowing from the sky." If the river were to surge and the dikes burst, the consequences would be inconceivable.
Many people have proposed solutions. The most notable among them is to divert the Yellow River back to its Ming and Qing dynasty-era old channel, dredge it to make it navigable, and simultaneously level the eight-hundred-li Suspended River. This would theoretically solve the problem once and for all.
However, the reality of the challenge is far greater.
First, why did the Yellow River change course in the first place? It was because the original channel had become so clogged with silt that it had already become a "river above ground." When the dikes eventually breached, the water naturally flowed to lower ground, carving a new path.
The original riverbed is, on average, four meters higher than the surrounding land. Even if the Yellow River Old Channel were restored, the engineering workload would not be significantly less.
Second, in the many years since the river changed course, less than a third of the original 728.3-kilometer Yellow River Old Channel remains intact. The rest has long been repurposed for other uses.
For example, in Dangshan County, a 46.6-kilometer stretch of the Yellow River Old Channel became a vast, sandy expanse. To combat desertification, locals planted drought-resistant pear trees. Today, over 70% of the area is covered by pear orchards, and the famous Dangshan pears are sold throughout the country.
Furthermore, more than ten natural attractions have been developed along the Dangshan Yellow River Old Channel, including "Oolong Draped in Snow," "Old Yellow Reflecting Snow," "The Pear Tree King," and the "Pear Capital Museum." In 2016 alone, during the Dangshan Pear Blossom Festival, the county received over 600,000 tourists, generating more than 240 million yuan in tourism revenue.
’Tear it all down just to restore the river channel?’
That was clearly unrealistic.
In truth, the Yellow River has been under constant management, with measures like the water and sediment regulation of the Xiaolangdi Project. But these solutions take time; significant results might not be seen for decades. However, a massive flood is predicted for the summer two years from now. They couldn’t afford to wait.
Li Xiang stood beside Hukou Waterfall, watching the turbulent current as a thousand thoughts raced through his mind.
With a flicker of movement, he appeared at the source of the Yellow River. He activated his Earth Escape Technique and traveled downstream along the river’s course. As he moved, his Earth Vein Perception Ability was fully engaged, covering a 35-kilometer radius around him.
It took him two days and two nights to meticulously survey the entire route, from the Yellow River’s source to its mouth at the Bohai Sea, gathering a vast amount of data in the process.
Afterward, he returned to the Imperial Capital. In Jiang Cai’Er’s study, he took out his laptop and began to write a proposal.
Jiang Cai’Er was, of course, delighted to see him, but she was preoccupied with a major research project and didn’t have time to spend with him.
"You don’t have to keep me company," Li Xiang said. "Wait a couple of days until I’ve finished the draft, then you can help me revise and polish it."
’The main reason was that Cai’Er was just too busy, and he didn’t want to take up too much of her time. Otherwise, he could have just taken her to survey the site and let her draw up the proposal directly. That would have saved a lot of trouble.’
’But he couldn’t rely on his wife for everything; he had to prove his own capabilities too. He couldn’t let Cai’Er think he was just some meathead, all brawn and no brains.’
So he poured all his effort into writing the proposal.
’How could anyone possibly charge headfirst into a project as massive as dredging the Yellow River without any preparation? The rock strata in many of the upstream gorges were fractured and prone to landslides. One wrong move could easily do more harm than good.’
Li Xiang spent two days finishing the draft before asking Jiang Cai’Er to look it over. She spent half a day helping him revise it, and the result was an exceptionally efficient and flawless dredging proposal.
A proposal of this caliber was something an ordinary person could never have produced.
It was divided into five parts.
Part One was upstream management, which would utilize a tiered control system comprising two main components: "Rock Vein Reshaping" and a "Terraced Dam Cluster."
"Rock Vein Reshaping" involved three steps. First, his "Earth Vein Perception Ability" would be used to scan the rock strata of the gorges, identifying and meticulously marking all potential landslide points and channel narrows within the proposal.
Second, "Rock Armor Shaping" would be used to reshape steep riverbanks into terraced, gentle slopes (with a gradient of 15° or less), simultaneously embedding natural Basalt revetments to reduce erosion from the current.
Third, "Earth Pivot Diversion Pillars" would be constructed downstream from rapids like Hukou Waterfall. By directionally releasing Earth Energy, he would form spiral-shaped, energy-dissipating structures to reduce the water’s turbulence.
The "Terraced Dam Cluster" had two aspects. First, at key nodes like Longyangxia and Liu Jia Gorge, the "Earth Vein Suction" technique would be used to extract deep-lying granite. This granite would then be used to forge porous, honeycomb-like ecological dams that served a dual purpose: flood control and fish migration passages. Second, a Spiritual Power Matrix would be embedded within the dams. During flood season, it could activate "Rock Armor Proliferation" to temporarily raise the dam’s height. During the dry season, it would contract to restore the water level for navigation.
Part Two was the riverbed-lowering project to deal with the Suspended River in the middle and lower reaches. Using his "Earth Pivot World Record" Superpower, he would suck the silt from the downstream riverbed into his Otherworldly Warehouse. Then, at an Extreme Speed of Mach 20, he would fly to the depths of the Pacific Ocean and deposit the silt there.
The riverbed silt contained a large amount of sand. However, after being eroded and deposited by the Yellow River’s current, the sand particles were extremely smooth and typically less than 0.3 millimeters in diameter. If used in concrete, this would result in poor binding strength and a thinning of the mortar, making it unsuitable for construction.