Chapter 504 - 330: The Year Before the Flood, Nationwide War Preparations (Part 2)
Chapter 504: Chapter 330: The Year Before the Flood, Nationwide War Preparations (Part 2)
With Luo Feifei’s help, and Li Xiang’s power having greatly increased from the previous year, the entire Yangtze River dredging project was completed in twenty-eight days.
This was a speed achieved through meticulous work, not a rushed, shoddy job.
Upon its completion, 10,000-ton cargo ships could sail directly from Shanghai to Chongqing, the wetland area of the Two Lakes was restored by 40%, and the river dolphin population increased significantly.
...
The Huai River, much like the Yellow River, suffered from being a "Suspended River." The riverbed of its lower Bengbu section was four to eight meters higher than the cities along its banks, and its dense network of tributaries meant floods could easily overtop the dikes. However, compared to the Yellow River, it was a minor problem.
Li Xiang and Luo Feifei joined forces. Li Xiang activated the Star Meteor Flowing Sand to compress the riverbed, while Luo Feifei manipulated the water, pressing it downward simultaneously. Though small in stature, her Divine Techniques in the water surpassed even Li Xiang’s. As they worked side-by-side, the bed of the Suspended River sank 6.4 meters in a single day—a feat that was nothing short of a miracle.
In addition, twelve underground flood diversion tunnels were excavated along the Fuyang-Xuyi section, each fifty meters in diameter and reinforced with basalt.
Zhao Xueqing, for her part, planted flood-resistant, gene-edited red willows in the flood diversion zones. Their root systems formed a natural flood retention belt.
According to an assessment by the National Major Water Conservancy Project Command, the dredging raised the Huai River’s flood control standard from a 1-in-50-year event to a 1-in-500-year event. This created an additional 1.2 million mu of arable land along its banks, and the annual flood storage capacity of the diversion zones reached 12 billion cubic meters.
Of course, a project of this magnitude required written reports. Li Xiang naturally delegated this task to the National Major Water Conservancy Project Command, which was staffed with highly educated professionals. They were the most skilled at writing such reports and also carried the most authority.
Li Xiang and Luo Feifei worked together on the dredging at a godlike speed. The National Major Water Conservancy Project Command had assigned several report-writing teams, but they simply couldn’t keep up. They were constantly scrambling to catch up, burning the midnight oil until two or three in the morning every day.
It couldn’t be helped. After all, they couldn’t have Li Xiang’s team finish the work and move on to other river systems while they were still stuck here writing reports, could they? Their superiors had given a strict order: the reports could not lag more than three days behind the project’s progress.
The problem was that the reports couldn’t be fudged. They required actual measurements, but some data couldn’t be obtained immediately and would have to be added later.
Out of consideration for the hard work of the support personnel, Li Xiang and Luo Feifei deliberately slowed their pace again. Sometimes they would take a break for a day or two, heading to the Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans to catch seafood and relax.
With Luo Feifei around, catching seafood was even faster than dredging rivers. They could casually catch tens of millions of tons of seafood in a single day. And that was just while they were having fun, a completely casual effort.
During their excursions, they also hunted many Sea Beasts with Extraordinary potential, obtaining countless Spiritual Medicines. Li Xiang selected the high-tier ones suitable for her Water-Ice Constitution and filled her Space Gem Ring to the brim.
As for Extraordinary Items, Luo Feifei didn’t have much need for them anymore because Li Xiang had already given her so many.
"Huh, a bigger Space Gemstone." After hunting a Tiger Shark, Li Xiang was surprised to find the system had rewarded him with an aqua-blue Space Gemstone with an internal capacity of one hundred cubic meters.
"Feifei, this gemstone is for you." Li Xiang took out the gem. After a moment’s thought, he used his Crystal Gold Armor to casually forge a beautiful gold necklace and set the teardrop-shaped Space Gemstone on it as a pendant.
Li Xiang thought for a moment; he couldn’t just give her an empty pendant. So, he selected a batch of precious seafood and stored it inside, filling about half the space.
He stuffed the other half of the space completely full of Spiritual Medicines—a full fifty cubic meters’ worth. It was enough for her to break through to Tier Eighteen with no problem, and there might even be some left over.
Then, he handed it to Luo Feifei.
"You put it on for me." Luo Feifei didn’t take it, simply looking at Li Xiang with a radiant smile.
With a helpless sigh, Li Xiang reached his hands around her neck to put it on for her.
Luo Feifei’s neck was fair and delicately flushed, as smooth and pristine as jade, and just as flawless as her face. The sea breeze blew her flowing hair against Li Xiang’s face, and a refreshing, heart-stirring fragrance drifted into his nose.
"Your heart is beating so fast, Chief Engineer Li. What wicked thoughts are you thinking?" Luo Feifei whispered with a teasing laugh.
Li Xiang quickly fastened the necklace and took two steps back. "..."
"Have you noticed? I’ve grown a bit recently," Luo Feifei said with a pout, her voice trailing off wistfully.
Li Xiang’s eyes subconsciously drifted to her chest. ’Well,’ he thought, ’they have gotten a lot bigger.’
"I was talking about my height!" Luo Feifei shot him a glare, but in the next moment, overcome with shyness, she couldn’t stop herself from hugging Li Xiang and burying her head in his chest.
After a long moment, Li Xiang patted her on the back. "We should head back. There’s still a lot to do, and we don’t want to keep everyone waiting."
’If this hug goes on any longer, I won’t be able to control myself,’ he thought. ’But Luo Feifei is still too young, not yet of age. Besides, she’s different from Yao Yao and the others. She has high standards; she’d never agree to be my mistress.’
He still hadn’t told Luo Feifei about his engagement to Jiang Cai’Er.
Li Xiang sighed to himself. ’It’s not easy being a scumbag.’
The two of them quickly returned to the worksite. Little did they know, the staff had actually been hoping they would return a day or two later. The speed at which they could write reports was nowhere near fast enough to keep up with Li Xiang’s construction progress.
Li Xiang couldn’t worry about such things. The schedule was tight, after all. The great flood was coming next summer, and with so many river systems, large and small, across the country, every day they could finish earlier was a victory.
...
At the same time, the entire nation was making urgent preparations to face the coming year’s super flood. These efforts weren’t limited to river dredging and reinforcing dikes but encompassed work on all fronts.
Li Xiang had taken on the river dredging and dike reinforcement. Meanwhile, Zhao Xueqing was leading the effort to build ecological barriers, which included wetland restoration projects and mountain ecosystem regulation.
But other areas required a total national mobilization.
For instance, the Sponge City 3.0 initiative.
In thirty cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, underground "honeycomb water storage corridors" were constructed, with each city’s expected storage capacity reaching 50 million cubic meters. All sidewalks were repaved with permeable ceramic tiles capable of absorbing water at a rate of 200 liters per square meter per hour.
Subway station entrances were fitted with three-meter-high titanium alloy floodgates (compressive strength of 30 tons per square meter), and core business districts activated "suspended flood walls."
The emergency response system was further strengthened, focusing on two main areas: strategic material reserves and a personnel evacuation network.
For example, 200 "flood control pods" were constructed along high-risk flood zones. Each was stocked with: foldable assault boats (auto-inflating in 30 seconds), high-energy compressed biscuits (1 bar = a full day’s nutrition), and water purification tablets (1 tablet purifies 5 liters of sewage).
A nationwide "3D Flood Escape Corridor" map was created, integrating multi-level pathways like elevated highways and mountain tunnels. Five hundred thousand "Flood Guides" were trained and equipped with AR glasses to provide real-time annotations of safe routes.
The technological prevention and control system also achieved major breakthroughs. The integrated air, space, and ground monitoring network was further enhanced. By that summer, 128 "Guanlan Series" hydrological satellites were expected to be deployed, capable of penetrating cloud cover to monitor water level changes with millimeter accuracy. "Fiber-optic hydrophones" were implanted every kilometer along the Yangtze River Basin to precisely detect the telltale sounds of sand boils.
Simultaneously, the relevant departments designed a specialized artificial intelligence for early warnings. It was of the same lineage as the "War Skull," but where War Skull was for military applications, the "Hongmeng Flood Control Brain" was dedicated to flood control. It was already connected to 260 million IoT terminals nationwide, cutting the warning response time down to eight minutes. Drone swarm systems could patrol dikes continuously for 72 hours, with a crack-detection accuracy of 0.2 millimeters.
In addition, large-scale military-civilian joint drills were conducted. The "Shield Flood-2027" theater-level exercise was organized to test the complete 72-hour evacuation of a city with a population in the millions.
Type 056 corvettes were refitted for inland river rescue missions, equipped with high-pressure water cannons and mobile medical pods.
Economic risk hedging: A "Flood Catastrophe Insurance" policy was launched, with the government subsidizing 80% of the premiums to cover 600 million urban and rural residents.
A three-trillion-yuan "Special Flood Control National Bond" was established, with funds prioritized for AI warning systems and ecological engineering.
The "Extreme Weather Work Stoppage Plan" was issued: during a red alert, companies were required to complete personnel evacuation within two hours. The installation of "Flood Survival Pods" in buildings became mandatory, with each pod required to have a guaranteed 72-hour oxygen supply.
It wasn’t just China that was mobilizing; nearly every country on Earth was making urgent preparations. After all, the warning had come from the Mysterious Armored Man himself, the most powerful being on the planet. His Divine Techniques were so vast and his power so undeniable that no one dared to doubt his words.
Consequently, the Chinese side also cooperated closely with other nations. For example, they shared flood prediction data from the Tianhe-2 supercomputer with countries in the Mekong River Basin and procured "Delta Intelligent Gate" technology from the Netherlands, adapting it for use at the Poyang Lake Entrance and the Pearl River Estuary.
The total investment in national flood control projects was projected to reach 4.8 trillion yuan, and the stockpile of emergency supplies was sufficient to meet the survival needs of 120 million people for thirty days.