The place they chose was not close to the forest, and logging and transporting timber would take too much time. So she ordered two thousand soldiers to dig mud, find sand and gravel, and find reeds, withered grass, and red willow bark. She planned to mix all these materials together and ram them to build a retaining wall.
This time she was well-prepared, and specially brought a four-panel box for finding people. It is the kind of box with two long boards and two short boards nailed together, hollow inside. All you have to do is pour in the soil, tamp it down, and then disassemble the assembled boards to leave a neat, low wall.
This method of building earthen walls saves time and effort. Although the fortifications built in this way require ample sunlight and are not strong or durable enough for short periods, making them prone to weathering and collapse, it doesn't matter, as the goal is to provide them for short-term use.
Then she sent a thousand men to dig a ditch. How did they do it?
She had been considering this before, but now she was full of inspiration. Their campsite was designed in the shape of the arc of Egret Lake, and she demanded that the trenches be dug in the same way.
A deep, arc-shaped ditch, with both ends connecting to the lake, was not completely cut off; instead, about a meter was left open, with the intention of releasing water into the ditch in case of an enemy attack.
The reason for not releasing the water in advance is to prevent the other party from preparing beforehand. If the water is released after they have fallen into the ditch, they will be helpless.
Then there's the watchtower that's essential for sentry posts. People can better monitor the surrounding area from a high vantage point, so she sent another two hundred people to cut down trees. They only needed fifty logs, four people per group, to carry them back in one go, saving time by not having to make a round trip.
She quickly completed the construction of the seven towers by piling up stones to build a high platform.
As the saying goes, if a person wants to climb higher and stand firm, he must first have a solid foundation. She found relatively flat stones and used silt from the lake as a binder to form the foundation, building it up layer by layer. Then she used rough wood to construct a triangle and bound it with hemp rope. Thus, a series of three-pronged pyramidal towers were built.
If a person wants to stand on it, they only need to make a simple ladder with the remaining wood to climb up smoothly.
To be honest, these towers, apart from providing stability and a panoramic view, greatly diminish aesthetics and comfort. However, time is limited, and this is all to achieve the goal of making the camp small but complete.
With sufficient manpower, these basic facilities can be completed smoothly in less than a day. However, for Zheng Quchi, this is not enough; she still needs to make some other preparations.
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