The dredging was completed on March 20. Once an opening was cut in the cofferdam built with soil hauled in from outside, water poured into the dredged third of the reservoir bed. Meng Hai thought that would do, but Li Long told him to dig out the southern cofferdam and haul all the fill back out.
Meng Hai was a little puzzled. Li Long told him that the floods would arrive in a couple of days, and they would be heavy. When they rushed in, they might wash away the cofferdam. Leaving that soil in Little Haizi would undo the benefits of dredging.
So the excavator spent another day or so dismantling that cofferdam and dumping the soil outside again.
Li Long also had trucks haul the dredged silt to the fields, where tractors fitted with bulldozer blades spread it level. Once it dried out over the coming days, it could be turned into the soil during plowing and harrowing.
Once all the work was finished, Li Long had two sheep slaughtered at Liaoma Stable to treat the workers. Then Meng Hai drove them back to the company base.
On March 24, the first flood arrived. The raging water charged straight in and filled Little Haizi.
After two rounds of dredging, Little Haizi's capacity had increased considerably, so the first flood did not batter the lower dam. Even so, Li Long took some men to open its sluice gate, letting the floodwater pour down into Reed Gully.
The force of the flood was indeed tremendous. Of the two remaining cofferdams, the northwestern one had two huge breaches torn through it, each over ten meters wide. Those gaps would have to be filled again for the final round of dredging after autumn.
Because they controlled the discharge, and water flowed fairly