On the banks of the Huai River in Bengbu, several boats belonging to the railway soldiers cruised back and forth on the Huai River, and from time to time some people dived under the water to survey the terrain under the water. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The reason why the Huaihe Bridge of the Jinpu Railway in real history is located in Bengbu is because Haozhou is low-lying, and the railway will be flooded when there is a flood, so Bengbu, which is 19 kilometers upstream, is selected. Now that Wang Yu has come to this era, the steam engine and the train came out in advance, so when building this railway, he did not need to re-select the site, and directly drew the railway line to Bengbu, and crossed the Huai River from Bengbu, which was the previous Bengbu Huai River War.

It has been almost a year and a half since the Battle of the Huai River in Bengbu, and the remnants of the Qing court have been wiped out, and the surrounding water thieves and lake bandits have either been exterminated or surrendered to the Ming army. Therefore, the plan to build the Huai River Bridge was put on the agenda.

The boats of the sailors sailed back and forth on the river, and several Marine divers jumped into the water from time to time, wearing diving masks made of eucommia gum and glass, the diving masks were connected to a tube made of eucommia gum, and the tubes were connected to the boat on the surface, and the divers jumped into the water, dived to the bottom, and breathed through the snorkels.

Due to the high underwater pressure, the surface air pressure is much lower than the underwater pressure, and it is impossible to dive to the bottom of the water too deep with surface air supply, and in the water, for every ten meters of increase, the pressure increases by one atmosphere. When the diver dives too deep, the pressure inside and outside the body is different, the human body will feel uncomfortable and even die. Therefore, in modern diving, divers need to breathe pressurized oxygen when entering the water, and diving underwater is also diving step by step, gradually increasing the pressure. When floating, it is also necessary to gradually decompress, go up to the water, enter the ship, and enter the pressurized chamber to gradually decompress. Of course, there are also hard wetsuits, which can resist a certain amount of pressure.

And in this era, of course, there can be no pressurized cabins and oxygen tanks, let alone hard diving suits. However, the water depth of the Huai River is not so deep that divers need to use modern diving equipment, as long as they wear diving goggles and use a snorkel, they can drill into the bottom of the river for survey.

With the technology of that time, it was a great problem to build the Huai River Bridge. After surveying, it was found that the stone at the bottom of the water is three zhang deep from the shallowest point of the water surface, that is, ten meters, and the deep place is more than 20 meters deep, and the river bottom is also piled up with thick silt, and the final silt layer is unfathomable, and the divers have not poked it to the end with a bamboo pole, and it is estimated that the silt layer is more than ten meters deep.

"The construction is too difficult, and if you want to build a railway bridge here, it is simply a task that cannot be completed!" After reading the report of the Marine Corps divers, Song Shiyi pointed to the report sheet and said.

Wang Yu was struggling to figure out how to build the bridge, and he originally thought of building a pontoon bridge on the side of the railway bridge site on the Huai River, transporting the equipment to the pontoon bridge by vehicle, and then putting the iron pipe into the water, draining the water, and then laying piles and pouring cement. But then I thought about it, with the technology of this era, it is difficult to create a large iron pipe with a diameter of six meters and a depth of more than ten to twenty meters.

When Wang Yu proposed the caisson construction plan, he was opposed by Mei Wending: "If it is sunk into an iron box, how to transport such a large iron box?" Even if the parts are transported to the river and then welded, how to send them to the river is also a problem. In addition, the bottom of the river is undulating, and the height of the iron boxes is also inconsistent. ”

At this time, Xue Fengzuo put forward his suggestion: "The students have a solution, we can build a barrage upstream and a downstream of the bridge, and dig an aqueduct by the river, so that the upstream water can enter the downstream through the aqueduct." Water is diverted between the two barrages so that the bottom of the river is exposed. ”

"Barrage? How long should this barrage be built? Song Shihui shook his head, "The upstream barrage needs to be at least more than 200 zhang long, and the downstream barrage is 300 zhang long, and the Huai River has such a large amount of water, how big is this diversion canal?" The amount of work is too large to complete. ”

"Build an arch bridge! It is only necessary to build piers on both sides of the river, connected with cement and stones. Dai Cang suggested.

Xue Fengzuo objected: "The bridge is more than a mile long, the span is too large, how to build an arch bridge?" ”

In the end, it was Xue Fengzuo who made a suggestion: "Let's just build a ferry, let the train drive on the steam ferry, and use the ferry to send the train across the other side." ”

Considering that the technical difficulty of repairing the bridge was too great, in the end everyone agreed not to build a railway bridge on the Huai River for the time being, but to adopt the method of building ferries and train ferries, first using the top for a period of time, and then building the bridge after the technology developed.

After discussing the problem of the train crossing the Huai River, everyone talked about the second roadblock on the Jinpu Railway, this roadblock is the Yellow River, the water depth of the Yellow River is not deep, but the width is wider, and the Yellow River at this time is very unstable, first of all, it is necessary to control the Yellow River, avoid the frequent bursting of the Yellow River, and strengthen the Yellow River embankment before considering the construction of the Yellow River Bridge.

"Among the people who fled from the north, there were more than 2 million young men and half-grown children, women, children, old and weak, we had already sent them to the south by canal boats, and the men were walking on foot. Since the Yellow River is to be controlled, these people should be left in Shandong, and the matter of the Yellow River seizing the Huai into the sea will never happen again! Wang Yu said.

Regarding the matter of retaining the victims and turning them into migrant workers to control the Yellow River, Wang Yu sent a messenger to the capital in an expedited manner of 600 li to inform Huang Xigon of the incident.

"Leave the young and middle-aged people and let them govern the Yellow River in Shandong?" Wu Sangui was stunned when he heard the news.

Huang Xigon said: "It is necessary not only to control the Yellow River in Shandong downstream, but also to control the Yellow River between Henan and Beizhili. We, the king of the south, have food and silver, and we can feed these plague people. Rather than letting them go to the south to find a way out, it is better to reorganize them on the spot and turn them into engineering teams to control the Yellow River. ”

Wu Sangui turned his head and whispered to several of his staff.

"Dashuai, you must not promise the king of the south!" Fang Guangchen lowered his voice and whispered in Wu Sangui's ear, "Once you promise the King of Nan, his army will have an excuse to stay in Henan and Shandong!" ”

Wang Shirong hesitated in his heart, the control of the Yellow River is beneficial to the whole of Shandong and Beizhili, and it solves the living problems of the victims, and the silver and grain do not have to be paid by themselves, and some people are willing to pay this money, so that the court can also worry about it. However, if the victims of the disaster stayed in Henan and Shandong to control the Yellow River, the Qiongzhou army would have an excuse to stay and not leave, and they would be able to stay under the pretext of transporting food to the victims.

Liu Xuanchu said: "Dashuai, this is related to the survival of our Ming people for hundreds of years, and there is no need for Dashuai to pay money, if Dashuai stops it, I'm afraid we will be unreasonable!" ”