Since the Shi family didn't repair it, it naturally started with the Xu family.
Xu Gensheng immediately decided to start with his own family's supplies and then ran off: "I'm going home right now to get money to buy materials!"
Xu Gensheng's family is also a large family of several people. His grandfather is in poor health and has been bedridden for most of the past six months.
Everyone in the family knows that his time is running out. Now, the old man only keeps asking one question: "Can I be laid to rest in the main room after I die?"
To die in a black lacquered coffin, to have the coffin placed in one's own main room, and to have a Buddhist and Taoist ritual performed for several days—that is a grand and glorious funeral.
Unlike other families, Xu Gensheng's family had been preparing for the house renovation for a long time, and Pi Shi was also looking forward to dividing the family property after the renovation.
The foundation is old, and the old walls have been demolished. If it weren't for the need for labor, his family would have started building earthen walls and thatched roofs to make do with a few rooms.
Now we can buy tiles and timber, and although it's still an earthen wall, it's much better to cover it with tiles.
Xu Gensheng has fled, and Jiang Zhi is still making arrangements for the aftermath.
It's not realistic to buy all the bricks now. Everyone is just barely getting enough to eat. If it weren't for the fact that the shacks are uninhabitable for long, there wouldn't be any rush to build new houses.
Therefore, most of the houses in the village this time were built with rammed earth walls, and the most labor required was carrying earth, which could be done by both men and women.
In this way, there are many people in the village who can carry soil, and when they get to the wall, they crowd together, which wastes time.
While it's said that repairs will be done one household at a time, in reality, if arranged properly, repairs can be carried out on several households simultaneously.
Tian Gui, Xu Genyou, and several other young men who had repaired houses discussed that it would be best for two households to repair the houses together and for three households to clear the site and prepare, and to schedule the time more tightly.
Everyone wants to move into their new home as soon as possible, which is understandable, and this plan has been agreed upon by everyone.
So Jiang Zhi took the money raised by each household and, together with the accountant Xia Xiucai, immediately went to Zhao Shuli's place to buy tools and materials for repairing the house.
Small blue tiles, blue bricks, various pine and cypress woods, as well as flagstones, pebbles, sand, lime...
In normal years, it would take two or three years to prepare, but now you can just buy it with money.
The village of Xujia is mostly covered with oak trees, which are hard and make excellent wood for furniture. However, because of their hardness, cypress and pine are better suited for building houses.
Each family in the village had a different situation; some raised five or six taels of silver, while others raised only one or two taels.
Several families had previously sold sweet potatoes to the government along with Jiang Zhi, and now they were exchanging them all.
Some families are planning to take some grain to town to sell, currently for thirteen taels.
In addition to the grain payment that Jiang Zhi could offset, the total was twenty-six taels, which was used to buy a portion of each type of material.
Twenty-odd taels can buy quite a lot of things. The post station has just arrived and doesn't have enough stock on hand, and there's nowhere in the village to store them.
It was agreed that the materials would not be taken away all at once, but rather a portion would be collected each day, with a continuous supply coming in later.
Zhao, the clerk, had his servant count the pile of loose silver and scattered copper coins, and smiled broadly: "I've long known of Jiang Village Chief's righteousness. She previously donated life-saving oak powder to help the starving people, and now she's single-handedly gotten an entire village of refugees to build houses... Tsk tsk tsk, she's truly a heroine among women, a role model for us all!"
The servant next to him immediately chimed in, "Yes! Yes! No other village can build new houses together. Village Chief Jiang really has the guts!"
Jiang Zhi was overwhelmed by the praise. She felt a bit like Xia Xiucai in a praise group. She quickly replied, "I still want to thank Magistrate Zhang for giving me room to grow and confidence, thank all the officials for their guidance, and thank you, Clerk Zhao, for your strong support. It was thanks to you that the villagers of Xujia Village had the opportunity to get rid of their shacks!"
...Zhao the clerk blinked. These words sounded nice, but something felt off.
Well, it's truly remarkable that a village woman could utter such tactful words.
"Okay, okay, take these licenses and ship the goods according to the licenses every day."
Zhao, the clerk, handed the document receipt for twenty-six taels of silver to Jiang Zhi.
This time, they took away ten straight cypress logs, each the size of a bowl, five thousand small blue tiles, a hundred kilograms of quicklime, and various small stones and sand.
In addition, Jiang Zhi also "borrowed" three sets of rammed earth planks, which she would return whenever the post station needed them.
Just as the numbers were tallied, Tian Gui and the others were waiting by the official road. Jiang Zhi waved her hand, and more than a dozen people from Xujia Village rushed over and carried them away in a whirlwind.
The handyman in charge of managing the materials stared in disbelief: "Village Chief Jiang, you're just taking everything without distinguishing whose it is? Aren't you afraid that people in the village will steal it?"
In their understanding, the sand, stones, and tiles must be guarded when taken back, otherwise some will inevitably be lost.
Jiang Zhi smiled and said, "Don't worry, everyone's watching!"
Collective property is also called "everyone takes it". If your property is placed in a centralized place, you will automatically become a security guard, keeping a close eye on it, for fear that someone else will take away a single tile or a grain of sand.
Moreover, everyone knows that regardless of whether it's a man or a woman who makes a mistake, the village chief will actually spank them.
If you get beaten up for a few tiles, you'll never be able to show your face in the village again.
Didn't you see that Xu Genbao always came and went quietly when he returned to the village?
Zhao Shuli is an expert in infrastructure. Jiang Zhi just asked him to help calculate the approximate amount of materials and money needed for a rammed earth house.
This was not a difficult task for Zhao, the clerk, who made the estimate in just a few words.
In fact, Tian Gui and his group had already estimated the material costs for a small three-section house.
Now that Zhao the clerk has made a estimate, Jiang Zhi has a better understanding of the situation.
The materials received at this point are the matching materials, which are basically fixed in quantity. If a household uses more than the required amount, they will have to pay extra.
Because it's a queue for repairs, only after the houses in front of you are repaired can you get yours.
In order to meet the deadline, almost no one would waste time.
With many people working quickly, by the time Jiang Zhi went to collect the various materials, Xu Gensheng's shack had already been completely demolished.
The bed was moved to Xu Changming's house, and the family's belongings were moved to the other side. They squeezed together with other families to set up an oilcloth shed, and the grain was temporarily stored in other people's shacks.
Rammed earth walls require clean loess.
Clean soil, in this context, means soil free of tree roots, grass roots, and peat, with good adhesion, and preferably containing some sand.
The presence of a small amount of sand in the loess can reduce shrinkage cracks after the earthen wall is built.
The soil extraction site had been chosen in advance, and Xu Gensheng led the soil extractors to dig directly on the hillside outside his own back door.
It's convenient to get soil here, and it can also expand the flat land behind, so we can raise chickens and ducks in the future, which will save a lot of trouble.
Remove the topsoil, and underneath is sticky yellow soil, which also contains gravel. Just add sand and lime, and it becomes the best building material.
From the villagers' meeting to discuss building houses to the first shovel being used, it only took one day.
There's no time like the present.
Please ask Clerk Zhao to help me check the almanac; today is an auspicious day.
The carpenter who had been arranged to come earlier arrived with an apprentice and the pre-ordered door and window frames.
Xu Changming presided over the groundbreaking ceremony.
Three sticks of incense and candles proclaim to our ancestors, wishing them peace and safety for their descendants and homes; a pile of paper money dispels wandering ghosts and spirits.
Construction of Xujia Village officially began.
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