Chapter 88

"All the villagers who were free gathered at Li Yao's house!"

"Her family had something to ask people to help with!"

Early in the morning, the voice of Village Head Wang Jiafu rang out at He Wan Village.

As soon as the villagers heard that Li Yao was asking for help, they immediately put down what they were doing and rushed to Li Yao's door as fast as they could.

"Village Head Wang, what is Li Yao's family going to do today?"

"I'm not sure either," Wang Jiafu said, "but it must be something good."

"Of course, helping Miss Li's family work is definitely not going to let us down."

Amidst everyone's anticipation, Li Yao finally came out.

"I want to build a dam to make a reservoir in the mountain behind."

This remark shocked everyone.

They knew what a reservoir was, it was a big pond that could store a lot of water.

But something like this was usually led by the county government office, and it took several years and huge amounts of money to accomplish. How could Li Yao want to do it herself?

Besides, why would Li Yao build a reservoir?

Wang Jiafu felt a little confused and asked, "Li Yao, you're not joking, are you?"

"No."

"Do you know...how much money and time a dam takes?"

"I've roughly calculated it," Li Yao said. "If all the villagers come to help, it should be almost done by the end of the year. As for how much money, I haven't really calculated it, but my family should have enough."

The villagers gasped.

Was Li Yao really that rich?

Of course, no one thought it was a bad thing that Li Yao was rich. At least half of the families in the village now were making money because of Li Yao.

If even someone well off like Li Yao didn't have money, how could they, who were just getting by, have any money?

So the richer Li Yao was, the better it was for everyone.

"Village Head Wang, let's go take a look now. You can help me calculate it later. When it's time to start construction officially, I will still need your help to supervise it."

"Of course."

Building a reservoir in the mountains had its advantages and disadvantages.

The advantage was that once it was built, the stored water would at least ensure irrigation for the entire He Wan Village. The downside was that if it was not built properly, a failure of the dam due to flooding would be a huge disaster for He Wan Village. So Village Head Wang led all the villagers, young and old, to the place Li Yao had chosen.

This was a place Li Yao had eyed for a long time. The distance between the two hillsides was not big, no more than 200 meters. If a 15-meter high dam was built, the reservoir behind would be very large.

Also, the surrounding mountains were all purchased by her, so there were no disputes over ownership.

After the reservoir was built, she would also build special aqueducts and spillways to divert water to the hillside below and to the new house.

By then, not only would it be able to irrigate the crops on the mountain, she could also build semi-automatic machines like watermills, water wheels, water fans, and mortars, and thoroughly improve the currently backward production methods.

After listening to her plans, Village Head Wang frowned in thought for a long time.

He finally felt it was feasible, but the premise was that they needed to hire experts to guide them.

"I'll leave the matter of inviting experts to Village Head Wang," Li Yao said.

"Alright, I know several senior hydraulic engineers. I'll go invite them to take a look later."

That afternoon, four senior hydraulic engineers were invited to the mountain.

Upon hearing that this reservoir was being built privately by Li Yao, they were all shocked and did not know what to say.

But as hydraulic engineers, they naturally understood the importance of water conservancy projects. Since Li Yao was willing to spend money for the benefit of others, they certainly did not mind contributing.

After some examination and reconnaissance, they came up with a rough plan that night.

"What do you think, Li Yao?" Wang Jiafu habitually asked.

After listening to the general plan, Li Yao felt there were no major issues overall. After all, the hydraulic engineers were professionals.

"Just two minor problems," Li Yao said. "I want the side of the dam against the water to be built with specially made rammed earth and stone strips, and the foundation must be dug down another five feet. This will make it more solid and prevent leakage."

"What is this specially made rammed earth?"

"It's something I accidentally discovered when building houses."

Li Yao planned to manually produce cement. This was actually quite simple.

Grind limestone and clay into powder, place them in a high temperature furnace to calcinate, then grind them into powder together with iron slag from iron smelting, and the result is primitive cement.

But the hydraulic engineers had not seen this before, so they could not confirm the effectiveness of this special rammed earth.

"Let's do this," Li Yao said, "there's still plenty of time anyway. I'll try to make the rammed earth first, and you can take a look and test it before making a decision."

"Sounds good."

"What about the other problem?"

"The other is the outlet gates," Li Yao said as she took out a drawing. "I hope it can be built like this."

The hydraulic engineers took it and looked. They were shocked.

The gates were not just one, but six in total. Each was 5 feet wide, 5 zhang (about 15 meters) high, and half a foot thick, cast from iron plates!

It also used a kind of spiral iron rod to control the raising and lowering of the gates.

On top of the gates, a 5 zhang high small building would be built specifically for raising and lowering the gates!

This...

The hydraulic engineers looked at each other in disbelief. In their lifetimes as hydraulic engineers, they had never seen such gates!

And with so much iron, how much would that cost?

"Money is not a problem," Li Yao said, "can it be done?"

After pondering for a moment, the hydraulic engineers nodded at the same time.

The drawings were already very clear and detailed. They just needed to pay attention to the specific dimensions during construction, and there should be no problems.

"Good then," Li Yao said. "Gentlemen, the dam and gates are of vital importance, concerning the livelihoods and lives of over a thousand villagers of He Wan Village. So I ask you to take great care with this matter."

"Miss Li, don't worry, we will definitely do a good job on this for you."

"Then it's settled," Li Yao said. "Let's have everyone start working tomorrow. I'll try making the rammed earth over the next few days."

...

Over the next few days, Li Yao was busy making cement.

It sounded simple, but was still somewhat difficult to do.

The main problem was grinding into powder. Without machines, they could only manually grind with stone mortars, which was extremely inefficient.

Calcining was also troublesome.

For this purpose, she had the blacksmith specially build a small rotary kiln, and bought large quantities of coal from afar.

During this time, Wang Yuanbang, the fourth son of the Wang family, made great contributions. All the dirty and tiring work was done under his leadership. Li Yao did not hide anything, and taught him a lot of knowledge during almost the entire production process.

After nearly ten days of experiments, they finally worked out the production process, proportions, etc.

Looking at the final gray powder produced, Li Yao immediately asked Wang Yuanbang to invite Village Head Wang and the hydraulic engineers.

When everyone saw that Li Yao's special rammed earth was just a pan of ashy powder, they curiously asked, "How is this used?"

"It's mixed into a slurry with sand like lime."

Li Yao had Wang Yuanbang demonstrate on site. He mixed up a pile of mortar, then used leftover green bricks from house construction to build a small pool about half a meter high.

Finally, thick cement was smeared on the bottom of the pool, and thick mortar was smeared on the bricks.

"Once it dries completely, it will be very solid and watertight."

Three days later, Village Head Wang and the hydraulic engineers came to inspect.

They felt that such a wall without any weight on it would be easy to demolish. As for waterproofing, they couldn't confirm yet.

In front of everyone, Wang Yuanbang filled the small pool with water. The result was self-evident. There was no leakage at all. Even after half a day, the area outside the pool was still dry without even a hint of seepage.

"The waterproofing effect is indeed good."

The waterproofing was affirmed. Next they had to test the solidity.

Li Yao had Wang Yuanbang take a big iron hammer and let the hydraulic engineers hit it freely.

They thought it would break open after a few hits like an ordinary wall, but to everyone's surprise, when the hammer struck, the wall of the small pool didn't even shake.

There wasn't even a single crack!

The five people, the four hydraulic engineers plus the village head, looked at each other in shock.

This...was just too solid!