The most distinctive feature of the Huai River, especially the waterways of Huaibei, was how easily they swelled during heavy rain, causing localized flooding or even great floods that spread across provinces and commanderies.
This was mainly because the Huai River's network of waterways was in disorder, particularly with the sediment washed down through its many artificial channels and forcibly diverted rivers. Especially in recent years, with the North and South locked in confrontation, Later Zhao could hardly concern itself with the Huai River region's economy. Many channels had fallen into disrepair, often resulting in great rises with heavy rain, small rises with light rain, and drought when there was no rain.
And this was precisely why a vast waterworks project like Shao Lake existed.
Flood control and irrigation ensured that even in troubled times, there could still be a patch of good farmland where people could farm in peace... In fact, if there was anything Liu Acheng had done last year worthy of praise, besides writing Popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms and "inventing" Legends of the Three Kingdoms, it was organizing a major overhaul of Shao Lake's waterworks after the autumn harvest.
At a subsidy of five Lulang Coins per adult man per day and three per woman, he had mobilized twenty thousand people. Including grain subsidies, extra rewards for outstanding workers, and allowances for the local officials of Shao Lake's five townships, he had spent roughly three million coins and a thousand bolts of cloth in all, repairing Shao Lake's embankments and adding four sluice gates to the original five.
Now all nine gates stood together, known as the Nine Dragons Controlling the Waters.
Boundary markers had also been erected, strictly forbidding the surrounding military-farming settlers from enclosing the lake to create fields, encroaching on public property