As soon as the fire was burned, the canal was blocked. Now the ships coming from the south were like big fish in a pond about to dry up, trapped in mud and water and unable to move.

The transportation route is blocked, so Lin Yanchao cannot continue north along the river.

Therefore, the plan given by local officials was to change the route and first take a land route to Xuzhou, and then take a boat to cross the Yellow River north and then go to Beijing by land.

The local official reported to Lin Yanchao: "If you want to take a water route from Xuzhou, then one is to take the Jialu River Xinhe. This route goes from Xuzhou through Huaisi, Kaifeng Prefecture Fugou, and finally arrives at Zhuxian Town in Kaifeng Prefecture."

"The other waterway is to walk from the old Jialu River from Xiaofuqiao in Xuzhou, and then pass through Huanglinggang and finally arrive at Guide. Please ask Da Zongbo to decide these two roads, so we can arrange people to protect the carriage."

The other party asked Lin Yanchao which path to take, but Lin Yanchao did not speak.

The local official thought that this little thing was not worth Lin Yanchao's idea, so he looked at the Jinyiwei general again.

The general spoke, "Which road is closer?"

Local officials said: "It is seventy miles to go to the new river, but the old river is much farther away, and it takes more than two hundred miles."

"Do you still need to ask? Of course, it's walking in the new river."

Lin Yanchao also nodded and said, "Okay, Xinhe passed by Guide, I have served as an official here. If you pass by the local area, you will inevitably disturb the local people. Let's go to Xinhe."

The local official changed his expression and wanted to slap himself twice on the spot. He is so crazy that he forgot about Lin Yanchao's resume as an official.

That's right, Lin Yanchao served as an official in Guide for three years.

Now he is appointed as the Minister of Rites, and then he returns to his place of Ren and Guide, how glorious it would be.

The official was in tears and a good opportunity to flatter him slipped away. It was too late to change his words.

The general came back to his senses when he thought of this and regretted it on the spot.

After Lin Yanchao arrived in Xuzhou, he requisitioned a civilian boat and traveled north along Xinhehe. After passing Xuzhou, the boat was bounded by Zhongzhou.

Because Lin Yanchao served as an official in this area, he was quite familiar with the terrain here.

Zhongzhou is no more charming than Wu and Su. Jiangsu and Zhejiang are crisscrossing rivers, Fujian and Guangdong are full of hills and mountains. Most of them are endless plains.

It is already deep winter now, and the plains are a bit bleak.

Lin Yanchao looked at the scenery on the bow of the boat, but the accompanying general asked the boatman: "The Jialu River is directly connected to Zhuxian Town, Kaifeng. It is the most prosperous, but why are there no ships coming and going?"

Chuanjia said: "This is the official business, and we ordinary people dare not talk nonsense."

The general snorted and stuffed him a ingot of silver and said, "We all went to Beijing to do it, and the words couldn't be heard by others. You said that the silver is yours."

The boatman took the money and immediately said, "Thank you for this military master, but there is nothing. We all know that the new river has a heavy tax. This boat is just a layer of skin when you walk, and we don't dare to moor overnight. Therefore, most boats can walk from the old river. Although the road is a little farther, it is convenient. Moreover, the old river is shallow. Even if the grain boats worth thousands of stones in winter can sail on the old river."

"A grain ship worth thousands of stones? That's amazing," the general looked at Lin Yanchao and continued to ask, "Is there no official tax on the old river?"

"No, no, if taxes are collected, which boat will go to the old river?"

The general smiled and said, "I don't believe this. Look at the Cao River in the imperial court, how many officials along the river are counting on him for dinner."

The boatman smiled and said, "Mr. Jun. I don't know what else is going on. But I know the old river very well. Thanks to our good official in Guide Mansion!"

"Oh, is the boatman from Guide Mansion?" Chen Jichuan, the butler of Lin's mansion, asked.

The boatman smiled and said, "I am from Lijiazhuang, Zhe County, Guide Prefecture. I sold my home land three years ago and came here for money to travel. Our boat is also from Guide."

As soon as the boatman said, the boatman on the boat also came to the newspaper house. It turns out that the locals in Guide and the boatman were all related to each other.

The local official asked, "By the way, who is the good official from Guide Mansion you mentioned?"

"Where are others? Of course, it's He Futai, who is currently in Guide Mansion."

Lin Yanchao nodded, and the other party mentioned He Runyao, the governor of Guide Prefecture.

"He Futai is a good official who loves the people as much as his son!" The boatman continued to speak.

The local official said to Lin Yanchao: "I report to Dazong Bo, although the lower officials are not officials from Henan, I have heard of the official voice of He Prefecture."

"Boatman, you've made a lot of money in the past few years, right?"

The boatman smiled honestly and said, "It's just about making some hard money from the wind and rain, and I have to rely on the prefect He and Lin Qingtian's blessing."

Hearing the bow of the boat, the official accompanying the boat immediately came to his heart and asked: "Boatman, how dare you ask which adult Lin Qingtian is in the dynasty?"

The boatman smiled and said, "Who other adults in the dynasty can be called Lin Qingtian? Of course, it is Lin Qingtian, who was reincarnated by Wenquxing."

"Oh!" The accompanying officials and generals on the ship all looked at Lin Yanchao.

The local official felt relieved when he heard this and said seriously: "So that's it. I'm so good at informing the boatman. Now Lin Qingtian has been named the Minister of Rites by the Emperor and is about to go to Beijing to worship."

The boatman waved his hand and said, "What kind of Minister of Rites? I don't know if you tell me. Anyway, no matter how big or small his official position is, he calls him Lin Qingtian in the mouths of us ordinary people. He used to call him that, and then also called him that."

Lin Yanchao was a little moved when he heard this.

The local officials forced their eyes to look at each other, but sighed: "Old man, the words are rough and not rough! Whether an official is a first-rank prime minister or a ninth-rank official, they are all granted by the court. But if you don't do things for the people, you are a bad official, and if you do things for the people, you are a good official. Are you saying what I said right?"

The boatman clapped his legs and said, "Yes, yes, you scholars can speak, and they say everything in my heart. When Lin Qingtian was an official in Guide, he once said that the righteousness of being an official is the benefit of the people. The old man remembers this sentence if he is a little scholar, which probably means the same as you."

All the officials nodded.

But when Lin Yanchao saw Lin Yanchao, he said, "When the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shen wrote a poem about compassion for farmers. This sentence of hoeing the wheat at noon is familiar to us. However, his actions after becoming an official are difficult to be "compassionate with farmers". It can be seen that no matter how the official speaks the best, the work for the people is to be put into practice."

After hearing this, the officials bowed and said yes.

Lin Yanchao smiled and said, "I just felt it, so don't mind."

The boatman saw that Lin Yanchao was not wearing a cloth clothes and a scarf on his head, but the officials around him were respectful to him. He couldn't help but feel it in his heart.

So the boatman whispered to the local official: "Sir, do you seem to be a very good official?"

The local official laughed and said nothing, so how could he say it out loud at this time?

Other officials on the side were willing to miss this opportunity and said, "Then I have the chance to go to Guide to take a look another day? The boatman will tell us the story of Lin Qingtian."

The boatman smiled and said, "That's good. Actually, you'll know it when you go to Guide and take a look. That's much better than what I said. But if you really want me to tell me, I'll just talk about the old man. Our Guide can't finish the story about Lin Qingtian for ten days and ten nights. Take this old river for example. The court only allocated 100,000 taels of silver, but the old river is more than two hundred miles long, how can it be cleared? It's clear that there are treacherous officials who are harming him! I heard that the treacherous minister is Li Zihua, the former governor of the river channel!"

Seeing that the boatman was talking vividly, an official said, "What about?"

After hearing this, the boatman said with great accomplishment: "Lin Qingtian naturally has a way, he is not panicked at all."

"Oh, how about that?"

"You don't understand this. He is the reincarnation of Wenquxing in the sky, so Lin Qingtian casts a spell to invite Liuding and Liujia to help the people open the river, so the river was cleared overnight, making the river governor very angry!"

All the officials bowed their heads when they heard this.

The general couldn't help but say, "Boatman, what you said is too mysterious."

"How mysterious? Otherwise, what happened to the old river for more than two hundred miles? Is this real thing, and the Lin Gong Dike also fake?"

"I don't believe you, the boatman? By the way, what's going on with Lin Gongdi?"

The boatman seemed to be unable to bear it and said unjustly: "Lin Gong Dike was built by Lin Qingtian. For the sake of gratitude to him, the people of Guide called this embankment Lin Gong Dike."

"How did Lin Qingtian build the Lin Gong Dike?" the general asked again.

The boatman said angrily: "If you want to believe me, the old man, I will continue to say, if you don't believe me, you will fall down. We Guide is close to the Yellow River. In the past, the river flooded, and the people had no choice. But Lin Qingtian said that the Yellow River is both good and bad for the people. We should turn the bad into the benefits, which means turning the harm into the benefits."

"So he built the Lingong Dike along the Yellow River. It was a coincidence that after the embankment was built, the Yellow River had flooded a lot of water, and so many prefectures and counties along the river suffered some disasters. Only we are Guide..."

When the boatman said this, his voice trembled a little, but he saw him slowly continued: "Only our Guide is solid, the fields are not flooded, the houses are not flooded, and the people have not drowned. Do you think this is Lin Qingtian's kindness? With this Lin Gongdi protection, the Guide people have not been affected by disasters in recent years, but have been able to lure the water from the Yellow River to water the fields. From then on... From then on, the people no longer have to escape from famine, and everyone has a bite of food."

"Don't you believe it yet? To thank Lin Qingtian, I, the common people, made the umbrella of the people, asked He Futai to personally send it to the Forbidden City to the Forbidden City. Even the magistrate praised Lin Qingtian. He said that as the emperor, he was rich in the world and had nothing, but no one gave it to him. This was what He Futai said to us after seeing the emperor. Go to Guide and ask, everyone knows this, and you will believe it when the time comes."

After the boatman finished speaking, all the boatmen on the boat nodded, indicating that they had heard it.

All the officials and generals were moved, and then they looked at Lin Yanchao at the same time.

The general whispered to the bow of the boat, "You really don't know who this master is on our boat?"

The bow of the boat said, "How could I know? I was sleeping in the boat last night, but you forced the boat to recruit the old man. This is how your government does things. If it is Guide, it will be the government who will give way to our people."

After hearing the bow of the boat, the officials all laughed.

Lin Yanchao nodded and said to the officials on both sides, "Yes, the government gives way to the people. It would be great if this day really happened."

An official immediately said, "You report to Dazong, should you invite the prefect He to come here to welcome the emperor?"

Lin Yanchao hesitated for a moment and finally said, "It is a big taboo to cross the line and go out to welcome him. Don't break this example because of me."

"yes."

The boat continued to walk along the Xinhe River, and after passing Zhoujiakou Town, it was Zhuxian Town.

In another time and space, because the old Jialu River was not cleared, Zhoujiakou Town and Zhuxian Town on the new river were both large towns with a population of 200,000 to 300,000.

Zhoujiakou Town is located in Nantong Jianghuai, and in the north, Shanxi and Shaanxi, and Zhuxian Town are the four famous towns that are as famous as Jingdezhen during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

After the ship passed by Zhoujiakou Town, it arrived at the intersection of the Xinhe River and the Oldhe River.

Lin Yanchao looked at the old Jialu River from a distance. When Ma Yu went to Henan to collect intensive taxes in the name of building the Luwang Mansion. After dealing with Ma Yu himself, he moved most of the funds for building the Luwang Mansion to clear the old river.

Thinking of the river he built with one hand, how could Lin Yanchao not have the urge to take a look? And the 300,000 people under his rule back then?

I have been thinking about it for three years since Guide became an official.

But the emperor was so urgent that Lin Yanchao was now unable to be free even if he was appointed as the Minister of Rites.

The ship finally arrived at the Zhuxian Town Wharf.

The general couldn't help but sigh: "This is Zhuxian Town, where Grandpa Yue fought against Jin Wushu!"
To be continued...