Lacking experience in digging canals, they learned it through practical work.

缺乏修渠的经验就在实践中慢慢摸索。

youdao

They did not work, either. By this time, the Union soldiers had become experts at digging canals.

此时，北方士兵一个个都成了挖掘运河的专家了。

youdao

By this time, the Union soldiers had become experts at digging canals.

VOA: special.2009.11.19

The settlers had plans to remove water from the area and in the eighteen eighties developers began digging drainage canals.

VOA: special.2009.06.30

Ma Jun, a water specialist in Beijing, says that since the 1950s China has been digging ever deeper wells, and building ever more dams, canals, and water diversion projects.

ECONOMIST: Farmers pay the price for decades of wasteful water use