The spring flood arrived right on schedule. By the time Xu Chengjun brought his men to Little Haizi's North Dam Line, Little Haizi was almost full.
Water surged down the flood channels on either side. Branches and grass leaves bobbed through the floodwater amid ugly foam, swept along with other debris. Now and then, the carcasses of dogs and cats came into view, though they had soaked so long that they hardly smelled.
"Quick! Open both floodgates!" Without hesitation, Xu Chengjun immediately set the militia members who had come with him to work.
The flood was coming in hard. He did not want a repeat of the earlier flooding in the village.
Although only the roads in the settlement had been submerged, that still counted as a failure on the team leader's part.
Of course, they did not simply lift the gates by hand. They turned the welded cross-shaped wheels round and round, raising the gates, and the floodwater immediately poured through the openings.
The water pressure was enormous, and turning the steel crosses took considerable strength. But with four militia members working together, they eventually raised both gates.
Once the gates were up, the flood split into two streams. One flowed straight down through Reed Gully, while the other followed the Fifth Team's Big Canal toward the east-northeast.
A group of militia members also stood guard at Reed Gully Bridge. Sandbags had already been stacked south of the bridge, including on the road. Both men and supplies were ready.
In his previous life, Reed Gully Bridge had been well built, but the road laid through the middle of the gully had been something of a joke. They had simply spread yellow earth over it, with nothing protecting the slopes on either side. When a major flood came and the